Patching up the Heart
by tylerturner
Summary: Cross posted from AO3. Yang and Ruby return home to recover physically and mentally from the stresses of the Battle at Beacon, though it seems Yang can't stop worrying about the fate of someone whom she owes her life to.
1. Homecoming

The sun shined brightly, floating high in the spotless sky. Throughout the autumn the warmth of the past summer had started to fade into memory, yet in the last few days it was as though summer was determined to deliver one last swan song to the inhabitants of Patch. The spring-like weather bolstered spirits - the Grimm fled from the woods and hid far away from the good cheer that humanity was graced with in days like these, for Patch was just far enough away from the suffering and struggle that never ended in Vale. The birds chirped, hopping about in gold-flecked, half-naked trees, basking in final days of warmth before the seasons called them elsewhere. The spaces between the towns and homes were thickly forested. Silence and space alike served to contrast with the hustle and bustle of Vale.

The road home was always so beautiful, yet so nostalgic for both of the sisters. There were a lot of memories in Patch. Thankfully, most of them were good ones.

When the girls attended Signal their father was still a teacher. He didn't need to drive them home every day, even though the temptation was always there to pull the parental card and make them accept the offer. Ever since they'd been admitted to Beacon, however, he had made a point to be there to greet them at the docks when they arrived, even though he knew that absence had made the hearts of his daughters grow fonder of the peace that Patch brought compared to the rest of the noisy world. He knew they'd politely decline his offer for a ride home every time, and he'd find himself driving only a few days worth of luggage home for the girls while they made the trip on foot. It was only a few miles. The weather would drive the Grimm away. Normally they would come back in the spring or the summer when the beasts weren't an issue. This time a bit of worry lingered in the back of his sun shined brightly, floating high in the spotless sky. Throughout the autumn the warmth of the past summer had started to fade into memory, yet in the last few days it was as though summer was determined to deliver one last swan song to the inhabitants of Patch. The spring-like weather bolstered spirits - the Grimm fled from the woods and hid far away from the good cheer that humanity was graced with in days like these, for Patch was just far enough away from the suffering and struggle that never ended in Vale. The birds chirping about in gold-flecked, half-naked trees, basking in final days of warmth before the seasons called them elsewhere. The spaces between the towns and homes were thickly forested. Silence and space alike served to contrast with the hustle and bustle of Vale.

The road home was always so beautiful, yet so nostalgic for both of the sisters. There were a lot of memories in Patch. Thankfully, most of them were good ones.

When the girls attended Signal their father was still a teacher. He didn't need to drive them home every day, even though the temptation was always there to pull the parental card and make them accept the offer. Ever since they'd been admitted to Beacon, however, he had made a point to be there to greet them at the docks when they arrived, even though he knew that absence had made the hearts of his daughters grow fonder of the peace that Patch brought compared to the rest of the noisy world. He knew they'd politely decline his offer for a ride home every time, and he'd find himself driving only a few days worth of luggage home for the girls while they made the trip on foot. It was only a few miles. The weather would drive the Grimm away. Normally the girls would come back in the spring or the summer when the beasts weren't likely to be an issue during their stay. This time a bit of worry lingered in the back of his mind.

It was never easy to go home alone with no one beside him but Zwei, poking his head out of the window and letting the wind blow in his face, tongue hanging out to dry. His daughters were some of the most talented and strong young ladies he'd ever seen, and that wasn't just his own fatherly bias speaking. Despite knowing this, he had to remind himself that they could handle themselves. He'd seen his girls on the screen in the Vytal Tournament. He couldn't have been prouder of their victories. He looked forward to seeing the recordings of their fights every day, up until everything… changed.

The silence that followed from Vale had been haunting. A part of him had been prepared to mourn - no, prepared would have been the wrong word. Resigned. No father was prepared to mourn a daughter. He canceled everything. There were other Huntsmen out and about in the world who'd handle the matters he readily abandoned in favor of his family. He came home immediately and he waited. He had to be there so his girls had somewhere to go, after all. He pretended he wasn't on the verge of shutting himself away from the world again. The world had already taught him to expect the worst.

The worst, however, hadn't come to pass. When word finally got through and he could speak to Ruby via short-range communications on scroll, arrangements were made overnight. The news did not prepare him for the sight of his eldest daughter as she returned. The trial she had endured was one he hoped she would never have to.

Yang's eyes were a dull, glassy violet-blue. She was not her usual self. Where her right arm once was, there was nothing but white bandages to cover up the sight of what remained of her arm. When he held her in his arms, though, he could feel her hug him back with every bit of strength her left arm could muster... which wasn't much.

"It's good to be home, dad." She'd whispered. He could hear the hitch in her voice, but after all he'd seen, all he'd done, and everything he'd been through, he could feel only gratitude. She was alive, she was strong. She was still his little dragon.

Ruby was more than skilled enough to handle anything odd were it to happen on the journey home, he knew that. It was still tempting to argue about letting them walk home this time. It always was, but now more than ever.

 _"We should have all made a plan to go together."_ He wanted to say. He knew the way to the place they wanted to visit on the way. Beyond Summer's favorite meadows to practice, train, picnic, and play with her daughters, overlooking the greater depths of the forests. Ruby's sacred place. Cliffside.

He couldn't bring himself to look at the gray stone there adorned with his late wife's emblem whenever he went. Yang took after him, apparently. When the girls were much younger, Ruby would go forward to pay respects and talk with her long passed mother while Yang usually stayed back beside her father, her hand gripping his so tight he couldn't help but wonder what age she'd be when she'd finally break his fingers doing so.

"Yang and I really haven't had a lot of time to talk since everything that happened." Ruby had pointed out. It was all that needed to be said. It made sense. The situation in Vale was volatile and messy. Refugees being taken to the other kingdoms, questions abound, investigations, searches for survivors. Clean up of the mess of Grimm that flooded the streets was ongoing. It must have been chaos. The thought of Yang alone out there, injured and bleeding… it was too much to think about. It was a relief that his mind let the image melt from his brain.

"I wasn't alone." Yang had told him, her voice just a little bit raspy from disuse. "I was in good hands. The best hands." She spoke, resolute despite the dull color of her eyes. She was referring to her partner - the faunus whom she spoke of occasionally in CCT messages. He hoped he'd get the chance to thank that one someday.

"Alright. Well, I'll go ahead and start unloading your bags. You two stay safe. If you see Grimm, use your scroll this time. No theatrics." He turned to the younger of his daughters, gesturing to the crimson weapon she kept on her back. "I'm not expecting trouble, but…" He trailed off, but a smile came to his lips in response to the understanding look Ruby gave him.

"The Grimm around here know who I am, dad. If they don't know better by now, I haven't gotten any less capable of dealing with them. Especially around Cliffside." She said. Her lips curled upward very slightly, trying a smile. The effort was there and it might have looked a bit weak to some, but it fit her beautifully. Her resemblance to her mother was uncanny in times like these when quiet strength was needed. She hadn't talked to anyone in detail about what happened atop the tower - not even Qrow - but that didn't seem to stop her from putting her sister first.

"I haven't been completely disarmed. I can throw a punch or two. Moral support maybe." Yang's lips bore a great big grin, and everything about it looked wrong on her. Her fingers flexed at her side, balling into a fist. Her eyes betrayed her. The corners of her lips shook, unsteady, threatening to collapse into sorrow at a moment's notice. The sheer amount of effort she put into acting normal was crushing. She had to know he knew when he looked at her. He could see her eyes widen slowly in reaction to the look her father gave her. It only made her try harder to appear strong.

She was in no state to fight. No one had to say that, though. They all knew. Especially she. One half of Ember Celica still graced her left wrist, but that was all that remained - a part of her had been left behind on the floor in a burning library, along with half of her fighting spirit seemingly contained without that lost right gauntlet. His heart sank a bit at the sight. The bond between a huntress and her weapons always tended to be strong, and Yang had lost enough. He thought things were bad enough after the scandal with the "student" from Mistral. To think he'd imagined his daughter being disqualified from the tournament would be the worst thing to happen to her this year.

Qrow should have been there to help them. Instead, he arrived late. _He always did_. Still, he had Qrow to thank for the fact that Ruby was in one piece, and that alone was enough to make him mindful of the way he spoke to his former teammate. That anger would have to stay buried. It was misplaced. He knew it.

"Maybe… save that show for when you've had a few more days to relax." He said. Yang's only reply was a weak half-smile. Clear comprehension that she was neither ready nor able to fight much of anything. She'd have been in bad shape against a lone beowulf with how long she'd been bedridden.

"We won't be long. Just gonna update mom at Cliffside and... let Yang have some one-on-one time." Ruby assured her father. "We'll head home as soon as we're done. If we end up taking more than maybe an hour or two, that's what scrolls are for, right?" Short-range communication wasn't out of the question with the CCTs down. It'd work while they were in Patch at least. If he could reach them at the edge of Vale, he'd reach them here.

"Take as much time as you need ladies. Maybe I'll have lunch ready by the time you get there, eh?" He smiled. By now his daughters didn't think the vacant undertone of his smile was unusual.

"Maybe we'll get back in time to have you a _hand_ with all the luggage!" Yang tried again. He couldn't help but admire how hard she tried. She was a strong woman, with a vibrant soul. The way light violet color blossomed back into her eyes was proof of that. He managed a snort at her lame pun.

He was looking forward to the rambunctious noise of his troublemaking daughters again. If anyone could get through something like this, it was Yang. He couldn't think of anyone better to help her along than her sister. Zwei could help too.

"Still at it, eh? Well get the puns out of your system on the way home, because the moment you step through that door, you're on a five pun limit again. You know the rules." He teased with a grin.

"Hey, c'mon, I've been out of commission for days. I have to make up for lost time! I'm being unfairly _pun_ ished." She said. It was enough to earn a displeased groan from her father. Ruby's tolerance must have grown, because her only reaction was a faint, patient smile. Yang, however, seemed pleased with the discomforted reaction she provoked from her father.

"Hey, I'm not at home yet. Doesn't count!" Any bit of genuine feeling he could see in her smile was a welcome change. If that meant stomaching a million terrible puns, he'd do it. He may not have always been the greatest father, but he would be damned if he didn't try.

"Yeah, yeah. Well, while you're here we've got a long climb to get you back to the top, so maybe think quality over quantity while you're home, eh?"

Yang paused at that. "...Wait. You think my puns have quality?"

"Oh no… what have I just admitted to?" The father lamented.

The girls presented Zwei back to him before he drove away with their stuff in tow. He watched in the mirrors as the two girls stayed behind, slowly venturing away from the docks and onward toward the long winding road home. The reserved way Ruby had behaved didn't escape his notice. Summer was the same way, once upon a time.

As soon as he rounded the bend on the road and the forests obscured them from the view of his windows it hit him, and it hit him hard. He could barely even see straight. He had to pull over on the side of the road. He didn't sob - he suspected he'd lost the ability years ago after Summer passed, yet tears leaked from his face like a broken pipe, spilling onto the steering wheel and prompting a concerned whine from Zwei.

It was so hard to let them go, even for a few months at a time. A few weeks at a time. For the mere hour or two it'd take for them to venture out to pay respects to Summer. He couldn't protect them when they were gone. He couldn't do anything except hope and pray that his daughters returned to him safely… alive and whole.

This time, one of them didn't, and he couldn't even begin to imagine what Ruby had been through when she unwittingly froze the dragon. A heavy breath escaped his lips as he wiped his eyes. He leaned forward, forehead resting in his hand. Despite it, Yang had seemed happy to be home. Ruby had barely taken her eyes off Yang. They looked after one another, and that was a comfort he held onto tightly as he started up the car again, wiping his nose with a sleeve and pulling back to the road. They always had taken care of one another.

"At least she's alive." He couldn't help but worry most about Yang. Ruby was strong, and seemingly handling things well. He recognized the look in Yang's eyes though. She was woefully close to breaking apart, and it was up to him to be the needle and thread. He would need Ruby's help. He'd probably need even more than that.

Slow, deep breaths. He tried not to imagine Yang lying on the pavement at Beacon, life streaming from her arm like a river. He tried not to imagine the dull, dark blue tint that seemed to haunt her eyes for those first few seconds he saw her. Those girls were everything to him. If he had to outlive either of them, someone up above was gonna have hell to pay.

* * *

"He seems… mostly okay, right?" Ruby began, a slight hop to her step as she began to lead the way. They only followed the road a short ways before it was up to Ruby to find the path. She knew the way better than anyone, except perhaps for her father and uncle.

"He will be. Dad's tough. He's had to lose the whole person before, so just the arm can't be that bad." She spoke as she kicked along some of the gravel by the road. "I am not digging the way walking feels. I feel lopsided. Shoulder's too light." She rolled her right shoulder as though to remind herself what that was like now that she didn't have most of the arm to weigh it down. "Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to be walking again, it's just weird."

She'd had her time to come to terms with the fact that her arm was off, so she said. She'd promised Ruby a bounce back; she'd come back tougher, smarter, and with a cool robot arm in the end. She just had to wait for however long it took to get one. It wasn't like facilities in Vale were prepared to present her with a military grade prosthetic on the fly. Sure, medical science had made advances, but that didn't make losing an arm that much less of a big deal. Hopefully she'd at least get to customize it. Clinging to small hopes and victories was necessary at this point.

"Well, as your sister, I have to say Yang, it still seems pretty bad to me. I guess I have to take your word for it though." She let out a small sigh. Her paced slowed as she watched her sister walk beside her as they veered off the road and into the trees, along dirt paths that led into old cabins, vacant parks. The paths that led them to where Summer rested.

"Okay, maybe it is a little bad." She admitted.

"A little." Ruby deadpanned.

"Okay, it's really bad." Yang let out a tired sigh. "If it's got you down too, then yeah. It's really bad."

"I'm okay, Yang. I get to leave what happened where it happened. You've... got to kinda bring it with you." Her head tilted at her own words, a squint in her eyes. "I have no idea why I said that the way I did."

"Man, it's not going to always be like this is it?" Yang let out a sigh.

"No, I don't think it will." She shook her head, face forward. Yang had spent a long time playing substitute mother for Ruby. It looked like Ruby was determined to return the favor and play the role instead today.

"It's bad enough that you've got to look at this and have that bringing you down," Yang waved her stump of an arm. "Then there's... the stuff you had to deal with."

"It's a lot to deal with, yeah, but I just… I don't wanna make it about me, you know?" Ruby's pace sped, and she turned to face Yang, walking backward.

"...yeah. Yeah, I get that." Yang nodded.

"A lot of our friends got hurt… I… a few we don't even know if we're going to see again." Ruby's voice shook a little despite the surprisingly casual way she delivered those words. Penny. Pyrrha. Ruby hadn't talked about either of them at all. She seemed determined not to. Yang was afraid to even bring them up.

"...I guess we should've expected this sort of thing to happen eventually. We didn't exactly sign up for culinary arts school. The whole point was to fight monsters and other things that could kill us… or cut off our limbs and stuff..." She found herself trailing off at the sensation of an itch on her nonexistent right forearm. Her left hand still made the motion as though to scratch at it anyway, even though it met only air. "...ugh, it itches."

"What does?" Ruby blinked.

"My arm. My ghost arm." Yang gestured at the stump. Or… gestured at where the arm was supposed to be, maybe.

"Is that… normal?" Ruby asked, eyebrows raised in mild concern.

"Well it's not uncommon I don't think. Pretty sure one of the doctors said something about it."

"I do not envy you right now Yang." Ruby smiled a bit at that.

"Me neither. An unscratchable itch. The ultimate torture."

Ruby turned forward again. As much as Yang's attempts at good humor were, the subject matter at hand was intense. "...I don't know about you, but I thought I did expect this sort of risk. I guess you can't ever… really be ready until it happens."

"Maybe bringing this stuff up was a mistake. It doesn't really sound like either of us is really ready to like... _talk_ talk about this." Yang spoke, the corners of her lips turning into the smallest hint of a frown.

"Maybe talk about it all as a team? I just feel like maybe it'll be easier that way." Ruby agreed. "Dad probably will agree. I bet he's planning a whole list of distractions so we don't have to think much about it."

"Heh. Yeah. Maybe when we're all together again we'll… know what to say?" Yang shrugged. "...as though that makes sense?" She couldn't know when or where team RWBY would come together again.

Ruby nodded, and left it at that. When she spoke again, her voice had become light and cheerful once again.

"I just want to laze around, eat dad's cooking, play some games, maybe make a run down to the beach if the weather stays nice… mandatory team recovery time."

The large grassy field where Summer once loved to take them was pristine. Had more people in Patch known about it, Ruby imagined that it'd be picnic central. She could easily picture a dozen kids goofing off there, families grilling out. Maybe it was a little selfish, but she liked it better this way. It was hers and her family's alone. It was Summer's gift to them.

"I do kind of wish Weiss and Blake could be here with us though! I hope we don't have to wait until after the visit here to see them. I've kind of always wanted them to see it here. I've wanted to introduce them to mom too. I mean… it might be a little awkward now that I think about it..." Ruby said, her pace picking up. They were nearly there. Beyond the trees opposite the field rested Summer, and Ruby had a lot to catch her up on.

"Are you kidding me? The view by those cliffs is ahhhhh-mazing!" Yang sang, successfully getting her sister to snort with a small laugh. "There's no possible way it could be awkward. Unless I sing again. Blake and Weiss would love it. Guaranteed." Yang smiled, but her voice wavered a little.

"We should try and talk dad into letting them come stay with us. As soon as we get word back from them." The sisters didn't have to discuss how fond they were of that idea. It was an instant, unspoken, mutual agreement.

"CCT tower damage suuuuucks. I hate waiting so long to hear from them." Yang mused aloud.

"Me too." Ruby nodded.

"Hey Ruby..."

"Yeah?"

"Do you think Blake's okay?" Yang blurted, subverting any desire she might have had to broach the topic more gently. "I mean, she kinda…" Got stabbed. Yang didn't know why that was hard to say. Maybe it was because people had a tendency to die when stabbed.

"Blake has been in more fights than both of us combined probably, you know." Ruby said. It wasn't exactly an answer, but it had the desired effect. Yang nodded, her fist clenching.

"Yeah. She's probably up and at 'em again already. I'd bet my arm on it." Yang's humor was decidedly dark as of late, but it seemed to be keeping her from getting too depressed about it. Ruby wasn't about to express disapproval.

"Looks like you kiiiiinda already did sis. Maybe find something normal to bet with." Ruby spoke, her voice quiet with her attempt at light humor.

"Speaking of all this, I know what I want to talk to mom about. For once." Yang said. It was enough to get Ruby curious, but the younger sister decided not to ask. What Yang and her mom talked about was her business.

Yang's visits to Summer's grave were much more rare than Ruby's. It wasn't that Yang was opposed to the trip, or coming to see the meadows. Yang just… couldn't ever bring herself to come forward. She could get past the trees, further than her father could, but she always stopped before she could reach the edge of the cliffs.

Eventually they stepped beyond the line of trees that led to the cliffs. The rest of the forest could be seen from there - not a spec of civilization. No homes or buildings. Just nature all the way down until the edge of the horizon.

"You can talk to her first if you want. You don't usually get to." Ruby offered, holding her hands behind her back.

"I'm good. I'd rather take a moment to sit back and breathe anyway, you know? I mean… hah, wow." Yang started to kneel down before plopping onto her bottom in the grass. "...I'm already starting to wear out. This is baby exercise, even. I'm doomed, aren't I?"

"You're doing really good. Like, really **really** good. I don't think I'd be holding up as well if it were me." Ruby said as she stepped over to her sister's spot, sitting down next to her.

"I'm trying. Really hard." Yang said. "But thanks. Not sure you're giving yourself enough credit though, baby sister." A smile. "You've pulled off some amazing stuff. Look at you now! You're a pillar and here I am, totally leaning on you."

"Awww… stooop. Heheh. I know you're trying. I am too." Ruby spoke, managing a faint smile in return. It was hard to smile with her whole face still. Maybe that'd come back with a little more time.

"Sheesh, I don't even know what I'm going to do to kill time." Yang let out a sigh, glancing at her stump. "It's not like I can play any games. I can barely use my scroll with one hand. No 'strenuous activity' means no running, no practicing, nothing physical and fun… Having one arm _sucks._ "

"For a little while Yang. You don't have to lie in bed the whole time we're here!"

"...and the CCT being down means that we're stuck with local TV and no 'net." Yang continued.

"Yang, I'm gonna just say it now. You're starting to bring it down a bit. The fact that we don't have internet access is gonna push me over the edge."

Yang managed to laugh at that. Ruby felt a little proud, up until Yang's laugh faded and her face fell again.

"Going into town with only one arm is gonna be… really weird too."

"Well I'm here to watch you! So if you happen to exert yourself a little too much, it's okay. If you feel like you're gonna fall over, you've got your little sister here to catch you!" Ruby smiled.

"...it really is nice to be back." Yang said, her tone taking a shift for a more somber note. Ruby whirled around and squinted at Yang, as though suspicious that she was looking at some sort of spy.

"So hey, Yang. Where are the one-liners and stuff. Normally the whole trip back you're poking fun at me and all the stuff I did when I was little. You are still Yang, right? My sister? So you've got a job to do and part of it is picking on your sister! No excuses!" She couldn't believe she was ordering her older sister to make fun of her, but any bit of normalcy she could get was worth clinging to. "Not only am I your sister, I'm also your team leader!"

"Brain's still kicking into gear, Ruby. Don't worry though, it'll be business as usual soon as we get home I think." Yang said, waving her hand lightly. "Maybe I'm waiting 'til we get home so I can embarrass you in front of dad."

In time, Ruby rose from her spot to venture out toward the place where Summer rested. When Yang rose she was a bit too fast, and she could feel her legs buckle a bit. Before she could sit, or worse, fall, Ruby was there to hold her steady, crouching and pulling the blonde's shoulder over her neck, walking beside her.

"Does it hurt?" Ruby's voice was quiet, laced with concern if not a hint of fear.

"Nah, nah, it's fine. I'm good. I'll sit in the shade here while you talk to mom first, 'kay?" Yang glanced behind her toward the trees for a good spot. When her eyes turned forward again, she caught something in Ruby's expression. The worry. The love there. Silvery eyes shined so bright, that for a second, Yang imagined it was her mother walking her in the direction of the shady trees.

"I'm here for you, Yang. Don't forget it." A voice said. As she sat in the grass and felt the cool air in the shade, Yang realized she wasn't sure if that voice was Ruby's, or Summer's.

"I know... thanks."

* * *

As long as Yang could remember, her little sister would ask their father to take her here. For a long time, he would walk her as far as the meadows and tell her to go on ahead. "Be careful, don't go past the stone! It's really high!" He'd say.

When Ruby got old enough to train with Qrow, she'd venture out alone. Sometimes at the strangest times. The dead of night, in the middle of winter. She'd come home sweaty, and Yang would find the empty magazines out in the fields later on. Crescent Rose had claimed more Grimm than most of her peers' weapons, and a lot of those Grimm died in that very meadow. Ruby was as only a spirit of vengeance could be to the beasts that intruded there. The sight must have been spectacular to behold.

Yang had her own ways of working out her aggression. That was one of the benefits of learning to fight like your father, from your father. Every resource he had, she had. Punching bags, training mats, sparring gear. Those were just the basics, though. Taiyang was a Huntsman, and out in the woods beyond the yard of their modest home, there was a hidden away retreat like an old-fashioned martial arts dojo, outfitted with top-of-the-line equipment. Machines that could tell her the force behind her punches. She could see the charts that showed how her strength grew as her aura depleted itself. Ember Celica had come before the Crescent Rose, yet Yang was never quite as eager to test the gauntlets on the Grimm. She had the dojo. It was a good thing too. She had been afraid of them back then.

Why wouldn't she be? The Grimm had claimed their mother's life. The Grimm had came within inches of claiming hers and her sister's too, all those years ago when she ventured off into the uncharted places in the woods of Patch. They were a force to be feared. Overcoming that fear was integral to growing as a warrior, and eventually as a huntress.

It was different now. She had much less reason to fear them now. The Grimm were predictable and instinctual. She supposed she was similar in some ways, but it was the creativity of a huntress, a human warrior, that could outwit a Grimm with the right training and experience. It was mankind that posed the greater threat. Even when mankind wore the mask of a Grimm. Especially then, it would seem.

She wished it was fall, or winter. She wished she could head out into the woods and see the beowolf packs come together beneath the moonlight. She wished she could beat them into the ground again and again. She'd picture the same face with each and every last one she brutalized. She wanted to see that mask break apart into shards that dug into his skin.

She didn't actually know his name, but she had a feeling she knew of that man… who he was, and what his significance was to her partner. Blake.

She tried not to imagine Blake carrying her from the fires and chaos, bloodied and weary. how tired she must have been. How tempting it must have been to just give up and...

She tried not to imagine her vibrant, golden eyes, and the cold fashion by which they'd glaze over because of Yang's failure.

...Damn. If she kept that up, she _was_ going to attract Grimm.

What then? What if one came? Jokes and such aside, she couldn't fight with just one arm. Everything was wrong. The whole rhythm of her body was different without her right arm. Even if she tried to work on her kicks, she knew that her balance would be all off. She could shoot, maybe? It'd be tougher to aim shots at range, but one gauntlet would be a passable weapon… maybe to stall for time or kill a single Grimm. One. Any more than that, and she'd probably be at their mercy without Ruby to help her.

It wasn't enough to just have one half of her set of gauntlets, either. A huntress needed to have a full weapon, not half. That huntress had to be able to wield it too. Not having the other half of Ember Celica was like losing a whole other limb. Double the damage.

She sat cross-legged in front of the smoothed gray stone in front of her at the edge of the cliffs, overlooking the forests beyond. Her eyes wandered over the words time and again, trying to push the negativity out of her mind with very limited success.

 _Thus kindly I scatter._

"Hey mom."

She knew in her heart that Summer had loved her just as much as Ruby, but she always felt like she was intruding every time she came here. Like it wasn't her right to be here. She knew there was no logic behind such a thought, but the feeling cut into her every time she came.

"I came to see you again. It was Ruby's idea… I mean, not that I didn't want to see you again. You know I'd love to. I'd give just about anything to see you. We all miss you a lot." She started.

She shook her head. She felt silly doing this.

"I… have a lot I want to tell you about, but I don't know if I can really get it all out in a single go. On the bright side, I'll be here a while… a few weeks, maybe a month, so… I can catch you up over time. The details are up in the air, with all the craziness happening everywhere else in the world." She inhaled a long breath, looking away from the stone and out toward the sky, eyes rolling to keep the water in her eyes from building up too much.

"I think… I told you about my partner, right? Blake? She's a faunus. I don't think I said much about her, but I wanted to. I was still getting to know her when I last talked to you. Heh... I didn't think she liked me very much." Yang managed a short laugh. She remembered what it was like when she first met Blake, before they became partners.

"So I… you know, I tried really hard to make her like me. I thought it was sort of working as time went on, you know? She ended up telling us a lot about herself in the end… it took some time for her to get there, but she came clean. It was a big deal. She had it rough. She was surrounded by a lot of bad people, and…" Yang gulped. Her throat felt dry. "They're still after her. I uh… got to find out how bad that was." She tried to clear her throat. She'd kill for some water.

"I don't think I mentioned that she actually picked me, though. It wasn't an accident that we made eye contact. I thought so at first but… nope. She snuck up on the Ursa I was fighting and killed it for me… then she looked me dead in the eye, and I saw her smile for the first time. It… took me a while to realize what that meant, you know? I didn't think much about it. Well, I started to work and train with her more. I kinda… saw a lot of the stuff she was going through. I wanted to help. I haven't ever had to be… that alone before, you know? I've always had someone. I've had dad. Ruby. I had you."

She sniffled, and took a few minutes to think. She could see Blake's face in her mind's eye. She curves of her face, long locks of black hair.

"...I have dreams… nightmares sometimes about my mom. She has long… beautiful dark hair. I saw it in one of Uncle Qrow's photographs. He says he knows where she is… when I hear him talk about her… I think, man… I can't really be missing out… that much." Yang shook her head. She'd started to quietly cry as she spoke. A lot of effort went into controlling her breathing.

"...Blake's hair reminds me of it. Long and beautiful. She's got these… these cute little kitty ears. I'm like… always nerding out over them to myself. I don't think she likes it when I make a big deal out of them, you know? She's really self-conscious about being a faunus… she's had to kind of deal with a lot of crap about it her whole life, so I can't blame her. Still… super frickin' adorable. Her eyes are like… they're gold. Sometimes it's like they glow, but I don't know… might just be me..." She trailed off, and then took another deep breath to steady herself.

"...I kinda realized along the way… where I stood with each member of my team, you know? Especially lately. I had a lot of time to think about it while I was getting treated for this…" She shook her stump. "...I mean, I already knew I loved my little sister. I've done everything I could to try and take care of her. I know that you must wish you could've done it instead… I never was mad at you, you know. I thought I was, sometimes… when I wanted to do things on my own… I thought, man… I'm a teenager, I shouldn't have to babysit Ruby… but I'm not mad and I don't think I ever was. I can't imagine what it must be like… to not be able to do anything to help someone who you care so much about… so I'm sorry mom. I'm sorry for the way I've been over the years. You… you are my _real_ mom as far as I'm concerned now. Raven might have had me but… you helped take care of me and I know that if you'd… if you were still here, you would be doing everything you could to help me still."

She shook her head again.

"Right, I was… talking about the team. Weiss, Weiss, she isn't so bad. She jumped in lava for me in the tournament. It was… you know, a simulated fight, but the significance still stuck with me... It sucks because the whole plan was for her to kind of back me up in that round, like be the support while I kinda led the charge? We had a loose plan before we went in, but I got pissed off and I couldn't focus because someone was calling me fat and crap... It's like I was twelve again. Kinda embarassing… you probably hear about Weiss a lot from Ruby. They're really close. Ruby cares a lot what Weiss thinks of her. I didn't always like that but… I've started to get used to it. Comfortable with it…"

She inhaled another long breath. She wondered if Summer would ever actually hear these words.

"Blake, though… I realized it as I saw Blake fight, as she drove herself nuts trying to find answers and stop bad guys… I realized it the more time I spent with her and I don't think there was a real… single moment, where I was like…" She gulped. "...it didn't happen at once I mean. I just kinda… I knew it deep down for a long time, but I didn't know I knew? I knew I cared about her because she was my teammate and partner but somewhere along the way… I realized, welp… I love Blake. I love Blake and because of that… I'm kind of trying not to be too obvious about it. I know that might sound dumb but… I just don't want to be more trouble for her to deal with. I don't wanna add to the pile. She's got enough to deal with. We all do. I just… I'd rather help her than try to get cheesy and stuff about it. I mean… I don't know, maybe this White Fang crap will be over someday and she can breathe easy. Maybe if that happens I'll say something, but 'til then… love's not really supposed to be about just you, yeah? It's about them."

She closed her eyes, and she felt heat build in her face. Try as she did, breath control wasn't enough anymore, and a single sob shook from her. She could still see Blake reaching for her as she lied on her back, bleeding on the ground, trying to tell her to leave her there. Trying to tell Yang to save herself.

"...I… I screwed up. I took a bad hit… I'm sure wherever you are you can probably tell that it's bad. I'm not totally down and out but…" She bit her lip, hesitating. "...I screwed up, but you know? I'd do it again." She felt her breath hitch as she said it, her fingers grabbing fistfuls of the grass by her.

"I just wanted to save her. I just wanted to protect her. I wanted to make sure she'd be okay. I thought she-" She ran out of breath before she could finish. The wind came, and a cool chill ran along the back of her neck. It was invigorating. Somehow, it shook her from that tense spot, and she regained control.

"...he could have killed her. I couldn't just leave her. I couldn't just watch her suffer… I couldn't… approach it carefully or from whatever… tactical angle might've made more sense… I reacted, yeah, but I thought about it too… and what I thought was that I didn't have time to do anything but react… that or I was going to have to watch him ki-kill Blake… It was the only thing that made sense to me, and no matter… no matter how good I was... I would've failed. I had to get to her, though, and the only way was through him... I mean, I saw her bleeding… I heard her scream..." She shook her head. Her left fist punched into the earth, and she felt the ground crack around it.

"She had to save me, though... I ran in and got hurt… and she had to drag me out. She was bleeding and she was hurt… and I don't even know what else that freak said or did to her… and on top of all that I made her carry me, her _partner_ out of that building…" This wasn't making her feel any better. She didn't get how this helped Ruby.

"...I don't know what I could've done. Should've done. I haven't even seen her since what happened. I wish I could. I know she's not d-dead, but…" Blake had been badly hurt. How bad, she didn't know. All she had was second-hand knowledge.

"...now I can't do anything but wonder and worry... But I couldn't lose her. Not like we lost you. It just kills me though… that if things had been a little different… I'd be the one with a fancy grave set up… and… Blake… she'd have to-"

She gasped for air. This wasn't working. She was hyperventilating. She felt dizzy.

"Ruby!" She heard herself yell. She was stubborn… but Yang knew when she was losing herself. Those moments were few and far between, but it was happening and she couldn't stop it. The tears pouring from her face said everything.

A whirlwind of petals danced around her in reply, and immediately Ruby's arms wrapped around Yang's neck, her voice filled with concern, if not fear. Worry.

"Yang? What's… Yang, talk to me!" It must've sounded like Yang was in great pain. She was. Ruby's voice was firm, but free of panic. She seemed so... in control, somehow.

"Ruby… god, I could've been here… like Summer… right next to Summer even. Can you imagine it? A little stone here… for me? 'Yang Xiao Long'?" Yang's voice broke. Her left hand rose to grip roughly at her stump.

"Yang… oh gosh. Yang, come on, we should get home." Yang could feel her sister tugging on her, trying to get her to get up.

"...what would it even say? Maybe it'd be… yellow-colored instead of gray? Goldish? It could say something like…" She tried to think of something funny for her own gravestone to say, but every phrase that came to mind was horrible. She knew because as each dreadful sentence spilled from her mouth, Ruby's pulling became more and more frantic. Her right arm hurt - the whole damn thing felt like it was on fire. Even after her vision began to blur and her eyes went black, she felt it, and all she wanted to do was scream.

* * *

 **I have been trying to make myself write a fic for a long time, and this is the first one I managed to finish and make myself post - I was heavily driven by the suffering associated with waiting for the season finale of Volume 3. Writing this was a cathartic exercise and there is more where this came from, but I need to polish the rest before I can share more.**

 **Please leave me a comment if you liked it.**

 **Edit - 03/29/2016: I think I've revised the first chapter for the last time needed. I am still working on this story but I've had some things to work through before I could focus on this again. I am hoping to resume publishing soon.**

 **Edit - 07/13/2016: Some small changes. I have to stop fretting over all the little things here or I'm never gonna finish this fic!  
**


	2. Golden Fog

**"Starting with her."**

Dozens if not hundreds of moments flashed before her eyes, and the colors and shapes that her mind lingered on surprised her. Love was something she had always been familiar with, albeit perhaps not intimately. There were many kinds of love, and a younger Blake hoped to experience them all. Love was what flashed in her eyes as Adam turned away from growling his cruel promise and found his first chance to make good on it.

Since the whirlwind, the pain, the confusion and the terror that unfolded, her mind reeled wildly from it all. There was too much pain there already, partitioned off in parts of her mind she needed to keep contained, just to stay sane every day. She didn't want to be like him. Adam had let suffering and pain become his mentor, and now she could see how easily it broke him. Somehow, her mind resisted the horror of what happened. The fresh wounds that threatened to lacerate her heart and mind all broke against her will like powerful waves in the storm against rocks on the shore.

As she heard the beeps of the medical equipment in the room with her, the murmurs of medical professionals, as she held the occasional forced conversation regarding her physical well being, she had all the time in the world to sort through the pieces left over; memories summoned by love at a time when she was more afraid than ever before.

She hadn't expected the memories she took from the experience to be such happy ones. Perhaps that was just the nature of people when they were at the precipice, staring through death's open doorway. She found herself clinging to those thoughts for dear life as hours turned to days. It kept her from falling apart despite the fact that once again, she was alone.

In the short time she'd gotten to know her team, she'd grown to love them - each and every one of them. She loved Ruby's enthusiasm, and how it made the grind through schoolwork at Beacon every day bearable. It wasn't exactly love at first sight, but in time, as she felt herself slipping out of the shell she'd built to keep her safe from making the same mistakes all over again, she had to admit the young team leader had an undeniable charm and gift for leadership. Ruby might not have been the key to just any team, but for her team? She couldn't see anyone else pulling it off.

She remembered the look in Ruby's eyes after the initial shock of seeing her older sister's... injury at the hands of Adam. The way silver eyes began to tarnish into a dull gray before her very eyes. The image pushed from her mind.

Yang. Yang was the one that left Blake feeling the most curious of all, but as her mind drifted toward memories and the image of her fiery, passionate partner, she could only feel the familiar rising of guilt in her chest. Despite the guilt, she forced herself to focus on the good memories she had. The way she watched with interest as Yang unleashed her anger, obliterating an Ursa in mere moments. When Yang said that she could have taken him, Blake didn't doubt it.

She remembered the way Yang would look at her in that forest after she revealed herself. It was like… pleasant surprise? Yang looked at her as though she didn't believe the faunus was really there. Blake could only chalk that up to the awkward first meeting, pajamas and noise in a room full of strangers trying to sleep. When she saw Yang look at her, it was like the blonde was seeing hope that they would be kindred souls after all. Back then, it was… amusing. Now, there was something sad about it.

She could remember the practice sessions, the study groups. The _dreadful_ puns. Yang was _alive,_ and she lived and breathed in the moment as only a flame could. Blake loved that about her. She might not have always known how to react to Yang's boundless energy, but it was contagious.

There were softer moments that took all these simple memories and thoughts, and cast them all in different lights. She could remember when she reluctantly made her appearance at the dance in celebration of the Vytal Festival. Yang could have danced with anyone, but somehow, she just _seemed_ like the sort of girl that preferred the company of close friends rather than attempts at superficial romance. Friends danced together. Blake danced with Sun, and Blake danced with Yang.

It was short, it was sweet, and without a word, Yang had cheerfully bowed out to gesture for Sun to have his turn.

She didn't think much of it until late that night when she tried to sleep, distracting her mind from images of White Fang members riding giant mech suits, ripping through structures and crushing students and faculty alike. There was a shining, illuminated memory from before that dance, and it was in fact the very one that made her go in the first place. She remembered the light most of all, and how it all seemed so Yang. Golden, beautiful, bright.

She remembered hearing her words. Mulling them over. Having the audacity to discard Yang's learned lessons just because she didn't think they were the same thing at all. She was right - they weren't the same thing exactly. That didn't make Yang less right when it came down to what really mattered.

 _"Not just for you, but for the people who care about you."_

Yang's arms had wrapped around her so cautiously at first, but when Blake found herself settling comfortably in her arms, she could feel Yang's muscles relax around her, and in that moment, after having seen the fire in Yang's eyes and the sheer effort put into trying to talk sense into her… she knew who cared about her.

A part of Blake wished that she'd just said that, instead.

 _"Not just for you, but for me, too. Because I care about you."_

Or maybe she'd have been too stubborn to appreciate that honesty. If she could go back, she'd have done a lot of things differently, particularly involving the way she interacted with Yang.

That memory cast many things in a different light. The way Yang stepped away after saying those words as though so tired, almost resigned. Blake had expected that to be the end of it, until her partner turned and shot her a slow, deliberate wink. The promise to save her a dance.

Yang had the most stunning violet eyes in that moment. Blake had known that for a while, but sometimes the light strikes a person's eyes a certain way, and you just can't help but notice it.

The shining light it cast those memories in was like a strange, golden fog. Yang had come that night in a pretty albeit plain white dress, far from the elaborate get up that Blake might have assumed her partner would have preferred. When they danced, Yang moved and danced with all the vibrant energy and _fire_ that Blake had come to expect, _alive in that moment_ , up to and including the instant she matched Blake's bow and stepped aside for Sun.

Blake watched her friends as the night progressed. Yang never danced with anyone else. She never asked anyone. No one asked her. Perhaps Yang's beauty was such that others simply found her inapproachable. Blake couldn't imagine any other reason that Yang would stay so content to watch and not participate.

It was enough to fill Blake with a sense of regret, though it was a welcome one. A small worry born of concern and care for a friend, a teammate. Her partner. Maybe even her closest friend in the whole school. It felt good to care for a teammate. It felt good to care about Yang.

Life went on, and those golden-cast memories were left behind as the world rushed her and the other girls forward to harrowing encounters, seemingly in a rush to make them grow up as fast as possible. She loved Yang as she loved Ruby. Maybe just a little more, just because of how much more time Blake had had to know and understand Yang on a personal level. That is what those memories would have told her if not for that golden fog of realization that hit her as blood pooled under her back, and she heard Yang calling her name from far away. The horror that filled her heart.

 **"...everything you love."** **  
****  
****"...starting with her."** **  
****  
**She didn't know what all those feelings meant, but she knew why she couldn't trust herself to take her eyes off Yang the moment they escaped. She was afraid. People don't always survive blows like that. People go into shock, bleed out. She'd seen it before. There was a lot of blood. Blake had seen men die to less severe injuries. Yang had lost consciousness seemingly instantly, and Blake felt herself in panic that Yang might not open her eyes again.

But she did. Weiss had said as much.

Blake had no idea where exactly she was. She only knew her hospital bed, but word had come in the form of a mundane message sent without the help of the CCT network. Yang was going to live, and she was being relocated at the request of her father, a huntsman named Taiyang Xiao Long. There was also news that Weiss would be coming to see her.

Blake loved Weiss too. It was a weird thing to think about and she imagined it'd be an even weirder thing to say. She loved Weiss as she loved Ruby and… no. She didn't love Weiss as she loved Yang. She didn't even love Ruby as she loved Yang. It wasn't that she loved them any more or less. It was _different_. Different in a way that she had no words for yet. She had nothing but time to think about it as of late.

Weiss was the only member of the team she'd had contact with since extraction from the scene at Beacon. She remembered Weiss' voice sharp, like ice and fire at once as she spoke with officials. The battle hadn't been easy on any of them - Weiss included - but if Blake didn't know the young heiress as well as she did, she'd have been fooled by the weight behind her words. The emotion she used so precisely to carry her desires and concerns with power that translated quickly into authority. A lot of the details of what transpired escaped Blake in her state of recovery, but she had a feeling she was going to be in Weiss' debt by the end of this.

A strange thing to consider. She'd heard that Weiss had summoned something. She wasn't even sure Weiss could do that. She'd heard tales of Schnees in the past that could do it, but Weiss had never even let on anything about it. It made her wish that Weiss could have been there when…

...no. No, it was bad enough. Adam could have taken more from her than the few remaining scraps of her dignity and a significant percentage of her blood cell count. More than Yang's arm.

 _Fuck._

She snapped her eyes shut in a desperate bid to keep from slipping into despair once more. Crying was so exhausting. She'd gotten tired of it. So what if it was her fault? So what if the only reason Yang had to pay flesh and blood that day was because of Blake's own bullheaded approach to Adam? It was done. It was over, and it was done, and _he,_ he did it, not her… and…

...yeah, sure, that was what _everyone_ was going to say to her the moment even a hint of guilt or self-loathing came across over the incident. They didn't know. The only solace that Blake had about any of it was that somehow, because of what Yang did, she found the fortitude to push on instead of die there on the ground in front of her deranged former mentor and lover.

She carried Yang out of there with strength she didn't know she still had. Her muscles still burned from it, as though it were seconds ago. No, not even that. The burden was still on her. She could still feel the weight even now. There was no one around to help her carry it. In a way, she preferred it as such.

If there had been no other life but her own to carry, it wouldn't have been worth it… but Yang Xiao Long was worth it.

* * *

Several days worth of exhaustion were catching up with her, with no real end in sight. She could only hope that Blake's recovery would come along quickly and that the CCT backup towers would regain some basic functionality before she lost her mind.

By this point, Weiss Schnee moved about on the ship as a person of importance. She'd been treated as such ever since she marched to General Ironwood and made her demands and confronted him on the neglect that led to events spiraling out of control. In the past week, she'd been colder and harsher to those around her than she had since before she came to Beacon. It felt good. There was a lot of pent up aggression, and her justified anger at Atlas' failures as well as the fates that had befallen her teammates were the only things keeping her strong enough to ignore the impulse to sleep, or rest. That, and somehow, she was still riding high on the feeling of power that came with summoning - it didn't have to be a complete summon to fill her with a feeling like raw power... even if it'd been one of the most exhausting things she'd done in her life at the time.

The resolve of the giant metal knight that she'd struck down so long ago had fused into her very soul. Her team needed her, but first thing was first.

The medical facilities aboard the ship were not luxurious, but Blake's initial condition meant it was too risky to transfer her to a hospital on the ground. She was stuck on a ship that was going absolutely nowhere, but good news was coming, and she was going to be the one to deliver it. She'd gone too long without seeing Blake as it was as she tended to affairs, including the headache that was associated with speaking to her father.

Blake's room in the medical bay was plain, unadorned, and unguarded. Inside, she could see the faunus lying in a bed attached to equipment, her eyes half-lidded, teetering on the edge between wakefulness and exhaustion. Blake's uncovered ears did not so much as twitch. It wasn't the welcome Weiss would have expected, but then again, who could blame her?

She stepped in cautiously, rapping a knuckle on the door as she approached.

"Blake?"

"Mm." The faunus hummed a single syllable greeting quietly in response. Blake rose a hand to her head and rubbed her temples in a vain attempt to relieve some of her pain and tension before opening her eyes to meet Weiss.

"...Weiss. You're back." It was a simple enough thing to say, but there was gratefulness in the words that didn't go unnoticed.

"The fact that I've had to leave you by yourself as long as I have as is? It's inexcusable. Everyone around here seems bound and determined to make getting you out of here as much of a pain as possible." She spoke, stepping around to the side of the bed. "...have you been eating at all? You look like a ghost, Blake."

This was not an exaggeration - Blake was pale, gaunt. Despite herself, she managed a scoff.

"...believe it or not, I am eating again. I'm sleeping too… non-stop. Restless sleep. When I picture a welcoming environment suited for long-term recovery… Atlas' military med bays don't exactly come to mind." Blake deadpanned.

"Better than the pavement, right?" She fought the urge to make a comment about Blake's gratefulness. It was fatigue that won out in the end - after all the talking she'd done that day, she wasn't up for verbal sparring with Blake. Somehow, as she watched Blake tense in a brief moment of pain, she got the impression Blake wasn't quite up for it either.

"The bed feels about the same." Blake managed.

"Oh, ha-ha. Sense of humor, check." Her chastising tone didn't quite match the feeling that she felt. It was good to hear someone wisecracking. It made things feel a little more normal. "Well, good news. You'll be able to walk again soon. Your aura is coming back, and they're expecting that to accelerate the healing process." Weiss' matter-of-fact tone reminded Blake of the doctors. She preferred the news from a familiar voice, she decided.

"Well good. Now I just have to figure out where I'm going now. It's not like Beacon was the only place I had left or anything." Blake's amber eyes rose to the ceiling, her lips quirking into a frown.

This time Weiss opened her mouth to say something sharp, only to immediately close it again, catching herself.

 _Anger on behalf of my team, not at my team,_ she thought. _Be the best teammate you can be._

"Like I'm taking my eyes off you. You're coming with me as soon as you can walk. I don't trust anyone else here with my teammates, you most of all."

"...Me most of all, huh?" Blake repeated.

"Yeah. You _are_ the only reason we're not team… Rube? RWB?" She ventured a small, half-smile. It didn't fit, so it was back to the changing room, her expression falling neutral again. "...anyway, less than a year ago I was writing off a big chunk of faunus as degenerates. Let's just say the sentiment doesn't get better among other Atlesians. I mean, it's not like anyone's going to hurt you. It's more like..." It was more like she would have hurt _them_.

"Yeah. I'm not sure I like the idea of being in the company of… your people." Blake's eyes closed as the words left her lips. It sounded much worse than intended. She prepared herself mentally for a reprisal that never came. Weiss continued without skipping a beat.

"I get that. You will be pleased to know, however, that we are _not_ staying here. I'm working on a better plan." Weiss assured, leaning down and resting a hand on Blake's shoulder. "I've spent… days… keeping people from bothering you with questions and interrogations. I can vouch that you're a good person and all, but I've deflected just about everything I can, and I don't know how long I can keep that up. I'm just waiting on word about when we can go wait for this to blow over somewhere else."

"This isn't the sort of thing that blows over." Blake spoke firmly, bitterly.

"I know. You know what I mean. Look… I'm tired, Blake… I haven't slept in four days, and that was a two-hour nap. You're tired. We're both still recovering from injuries - mine being less critical, sure, but you get it. The point is that we deserve a safe place to go to recover."

Blake grimaced. "I hope you're not suggesting a vacation."

"It's not a _vacation_. I'm trying to get us back with the rest of our team. Their father - Ruby and Yang's - got word in and they're going to see him. When the CCT towers are back up, I can formalize the request to be taken there."

"Are we even welcome?" Blake asked, and she immediately felt Weiss' eyes rolling at the fear and concern in her voice. She couldn't help the way her heart sank at the mention of Yang.

"Duh." Weiss replied, not bothering to hide the hint of annoyance in her voice.

"I mean… if you haven't been able to talk to anyone without the CCT towers… how do you even know our team wants to see us?" The words felt ridiculous even to her as they left her lips. Of course Ruby and Yang would want to see them. Weiss at least. After all she'd seen, and all the things that happened that **could have been avoided had she been smarter** , guilt was a bit of a tough thing to just ignore. Yang would deny Blake's fault in the matter until the bitter end, but what about her sister? What about everyone who had to look at Yang struggle with things ever since she lost her... what if Yang _didn't_ deny Blake's fault?

"We've been using… more… primitive methods of communicating. They just take longer. Plus, why wouldn't they want to see us? We're a team. Don't you think they're going to want to see that you're okay? Don't you miss them?" Weiss planted her hands on her hips, her lips forming a hard line. Blake didn't have to look at her to tell that the heiress' patience was wearing thinner and thinner.

"...where are they?" Blake finally asked.

"Patch. It's an island. Still in Vale." Weiss answered. It sounded familiar. Yang had told her about the place. A trip to an _island_ sounded all wrong to her, though. Blake offered protest before reason could intervene.

"...we don't have time for a vacation. We should be getting ready to meet up with-"

"It's _not a vacation_! This isn't some luxury cruise! Your aura hasn't even fully replenished, and it's been _days_. You're recovering from having been _stabbed,_ and newsflash, that's not something people usually just walk off, and even if you hadn't, Yang doesn't even have both arms to fight with!" The words hit Blake like a bullet. Talking suddenly felt like a terrible idea as Weiss finished. "Team RWBY is out of commission until further notice whether we like it or not! Oh, and the damage done to your aura? No one gets what happened there. A stab wound shouldn't have taken it out this long with your recovery rate."

Blake's reaction had been a retreat. Silence. It looked a lot like sulking to Weiss, but it still gave her pause. The image of Blake lying helplessly on the ground beside Yang, gripping her hand like it was the only thing keeping Yang from falling into the abyss came to mind. It was clear even to Weiss that whatever exactly happened to those two had changed things between them. She hadn't asked for Blake's version of the story yet, but it was very clear just by looking that Blake felt she had a good idea of who was **really** to blame, and she probably didn't think it was whoever held the sword that claimed her partner's arm

"...she's okay." Weiss said with a small sigh. "I was gonna say that sooner. If I didn't already."

"She's **okay?** Her arm's gone. That doesn't sound okay to me! You think _she's_ okay with it?" Blake turned her head a bit too sharply in Weiss' direction - she was using muscles she hadn't bothered with in a while. The shock that ran up her neck couldn't be ignored, but she could be stoic about showing her pain.

Weiss hesitated to reply. Her silence said enough.

"...sorry, Weiss. I don't... I don't know why I'm getting mad at you over it." Blake closed her eyes, as though not looking at Weiss would make it easier to pretend she'd kept her mouth shut.

"Me neither, but it's okay." Weiss couldn't help but reflect on how much effort it took to be so forgiving. "We're a team, and we all need each other if we're going to recover. Ruby lost one of her best friends. Yang lost her arm, you're injured… we've all got a lot going on. Even without thinking about bad things went for everyone else who was there, we've got our plates full." A certain red-haired woman came to mind. Even Weiss had to try and push that thought from her mind.

"It's not a luxury. It's a necessity." Weiss said, exasperated. Blake was a brick wall at times like these. It made Weiss wish she had someone around good at breaking them down. Alas, the best candidate was all the way in Patch. She could do nothing but pinch the bridge of her nose and hope that Blake came around on her own.

She heard Blake let out a tired sigh like defeat, and her eyes sharply turned to Blake. Really? It was that easy?

"...then just keep me updated, Weiss? I'm tired of being stuck here… and now that I know people want to… as you say, 'question me'… I don't care where we go as long as it's not here."

"Good. Glad we're finally on the same page! Now for the other good news; I pulled a few strings and had some books brought. I can't promise you'll like them but I made sure they all came very well recommended. They'll be taking them up here soon. Can you sit upright yet?"

"I haven't really tried yet." Blake admitted. "Should I?"

"If the doctors say it's alright, yeah, why not? Maybe a bit of light reading will tie you over until I have specifics as to when and if we're going." Weiss started to step back from the bed with that. She felt her eyelids getting very heavy, and she was far from done handling things. Being a good teammate was a lot harder on no sleep. It didn't help that Blake was more difficult than usual.

"I- thanks. Thanks Weiss. I mean that." Blake's words were very slow and deliberately spoken. It was enough to make Weiss stop mid-step and turn on her heel.

"We're a team. That goes for you and me too. We may not be partners but Yang isn't the only person in this team that cares about you." She trailed off for a moment. That sounded like a rough note to end on. "That said... don't mention it Blake. I'm just... glad you're okay. I was worried." She felt a lot better satisfied with that attempt at closing the conversation. Apparently so did Blake.

"...that means more to me than you know, Weiss."

That had been the first seemingly genuine bit of tenderness to grace Weiss' voice since this all started. Even Blake couldn't help but find the change in tone reassuring.

When the room was all hers again, exhaustion set in again. She didn't stir as men brought a short stack of books to the table beside her bed.

* * *

Ruby couldn't sleep. No matter how hard she tried. The covers were too warm. The air in the room was too cold. It felt lonely without the idle snoring and breathing that accompanied living in the dorms. She couldn't believe that's how used she'd gotten to it.

Familiarity was all around her. It was her room. Her space. She'd grown up here.

It felt wrong now.

She rose from the bed with a start - a burst of energy born of frustration. No, it wasn't just personal discomfort keeping her awake. It was Yang. It was Penny. It was the look in her father's eye when he saw Yang now that she'd been crippled. It was the madness that she felt overtake her when hell began to break loose. The madness that drove her to drive one of Penny's blades into the chest of a Giant Nevermore. The madness that prompted her to ride a rocket-locker onto a military cruiser. To try fighting Roman Torchwick and his crazy bodyguard at the same time. The madness that drove her to climb the tower.

She missed it. There was something about being so caught up in that **madness** that made it easier to deal with the suffering and pain going on around her.

She didn't think about Pyrrha. Some part of her mind simply wouldn't let her. Madness was a dangerous line to straddle and when it snapped, the people riding it didn't always come back.

She shook her hair out. Staying grounded was hard. She hoped it'd get easier. As she rose from her bed and stepped across the uncharacteristically orderly and clean bedroom toward her workbench, she set up the paper. Pen in hand, all she could do at first… was stare at the blank space.

She exhaled a breath, pained.

"If I could, Penny… I'd build you a new body." She said quietly. Instead, her pen lowered and began to draw a shape like a limb. An arm.

She hated to see her sister in so much pain. Especially since nothing had **ever** phased Yang as much as this did. But maybe…

She couldn't fix everything. No, she was more of a weapons kind of designer. And even at that she was still a bit inexperienced given that Qrow had to help her with Crescent Rose. She wasn't exactly a wizard at cybernetics either, but she knew aesthetics. More importantly, she knew her sister.

It was a long shot. She took a breath and tried to prepare mentally for failure. If it didn't work out, well, she tried, and it wasn't like there weren't other things she could do to help Yang.

She surprised herself at how late she was up, working on different iterations of the same design. The sun was up, and she could hear her father moving and cooking downstairs by the time she was done. She rolled up the fruit of her labor and marched down in her pajamas, absent-mindedly leaving it behind. The fatigue didn't start to sink in until she approached Yang downstairs. Her sister was sprawled about on a fold-out mattress, propped up on pillows to avoid placing unwanted pressure on her injured half, wrapped up in a blanket.

A blanket was unusual. Yang usually ran at a pretty high temperature.

"Yang? Yaaaang… Yang, wake uuuup…" She whispered.

No response. Yang was a rock.

"Yang." A little firmer, but still quiet. "...it sounds like dad's making breakfast."

Yang's only reply was steady breathing, a faint snore. It was the most genuinely peaceful Ruby had seen her sister look since before her match with Mercury.

She reached out and plugged Yang's nose. She waited for a moment…

...and sleeping beauty awakened from her slumber in all her splendor. Yang's eyelids were heavy and she'd begun to drool from the corner of her mouth. Her long golden hair was tangled in knots. The mild panic with which she woke only served to enhance the... natural beauty... of Ruby's older sister.

"...uunnh?" Spoke the zombie. Yang grimaced and clumsily shifted in the mattress as she tried to figure out how to wipe her face without her dominant hand. The chore seemed surprisingly difficult. Ruby tried not to gloat at her older sibling's misfortune.

"Yaaang. Gooood morning. You sound like you could use some brains for breakfast." Ruby grinned.

Yang made a show of the effort put into sitting up straight. She moved like she was seventy years old.

"...time is it?" Yang asked.

"Time for breakfast soon! I made you something too."

"...it's not even noon though. Can't I go back to bed?" Yang groaned. There was something amusing about Yang's lack of her usual up-and-at-'em approach to mornings. That was normal. Yang let the sleep debt pile up until break, and then made it all up at home in Patch.

"After you check out what I made you. I don't think breakfast is going to be ready for bit still. I can't even smell the bacon yet. Dad's up at least though!"

"...whatcha got for me?" Yang mumbled, lazily blinking at Ruby.

"Okay, so, It's really awesome, and I'm super nervous about whether or not you'll like it, but I hope you do!" Ruby's grin was ear-to-ear. Despite Yang's status as a half-awake zombie-sister, she couldn't help but smile back.

"...I want to wake up to presents every day." Yang said, stifling a yawn. "Where is it?"

Ruby had to stop and think about that. A short moment later, after realizing she left the design upstairs, she sped back down in a flurry of petals and presented a drawing.

With a little effort, Yang the zombie took up the piece of paper and began to look it over. She felt herself wake up as she started to realize what she was looking at. It was like a gauntlet. Her emblem was emblazoned on the top of its hand. She saw interlocking mechanisms almost identical to Ember Celica… slightly different than the way Yang would've set it up, but Ruby did have a way of finding more interesting and creative ways to make things work. Scribbled notes pointed out the different parts, and described hypothetical functions. It was very elaborate and detailed despite Ruby's lack of cybernetic experience.

Yang hadn't said anything yet. Anxious, Ruby went ahead and broke the silence with the obvious.

"It's a cybernetic arm! I drew the schematics with some of my own modifications - I mean, I can't do more than a rough mock-up without actually having like… real prosthetic designs to consult and look at? I know it looks a little plain here without the color in these spots… I figured maybe kind of a gold and black look? Like your motorcycle, Bumblebee?"

Yang's silence continued as she examined the picture.

Ruby felt her enthusiasm slowly flickering away. "...you don't like it?"

"Ruby, no, no… it's not that I don't…" Yang shook her head.

"It's okay! I mean, it's not like it's… fully custom made, so it's okay if you don't like it, it's just a uh, modified… custom-y… Atlas-model inspired cybernetic arm… I'm sure I can draw up a better one… or just…" She trailed off. She felt a bit silly. "This was a dumb idea, wasn't it?"

Yang hesitated before she spoke.

"It… looks… like it would work pretty well. Uh." Yang knew she should have been hooping and hollering about how awesome a new arm would be. Especially one designed by her little sister, even if she wanted to downplay just how hard she worked on it. It was inevitable. She knew she'd get a replacement eventually. She just wasn't ready to start talking about it yet. No matter how cool it'd look. No matter how thoughtful the gesture.

It still made Yang's heart heavy as she looked over at Ruby, who was much less good at hiding her disappointment after a night of no sleep. She looked like a kicked puppy.

"Yang… I'm sorry. I thought you'd like it..."

"Ruby, no, don't be sorry. It's just… I don't know how I feel about… being… part machine? I don't know how I feel about it not being me. I don't know how I feel about…" Yang shook her head. "I _do_ like it. I think it looks amazing. If you'd shown me this like… a month or so ago, and told me that I'd have this as my arm, I'd probably be… weirdly stoked to get my arm chopped off."

Ruby's lips turned upward slightly, though the sadness in her smile wouldn't go away. "I get it, I think." Ruby said.

Yang raised a brow. "...you do?"

Ruby nodded. "Yeah. It's like… I just keep thinking like… about Penny, you know? How they might rebuild her someday… but how I don't know if she'll still…" Ruby hesitated to finish. Before she could say much more, her sister surprised her with her speed and strength despite using her left arm as Yang pulled her into a rough hug.

It wasn't the crushing bear hug that Yang wished it could be, but it'd have to do for now.

"...thanks Yang. It's…" Ruby buried her face into Yang's shoulder.

"Not the same." Yang nodded. **  
**

* * *

 **I didn't expect this story to get much if any attention, and the fact that it has really means a lot to me. The Volume 3 finale is today so I am expecting some canon divergence to start happening. I've done some small edits to the last chapter too. I hope that if you've gotten this far that you continue to enjoy! If people still like reading this, then I'll try to keep working on it. Thanks for reading and please feel free to leave me a review if you enjoyed!**


	3. Flameless

The Xiao-Long/Rose residence was modest. Given the capacity for monetary gain in many contracts huntsmen and huntresses took, it was likely that Taiyang and Summer could have chosen something infinitely more opulent. Resplendent displays of wealth, however, were the hallmark of neither parent when it came time to settle down. Home was a simple, unpainted house built from wood, large enough to comfortably raise a family of four plus a handful of pets. It worked. There was enough land to build on. The house could have been expanded had a third child unexpectedly entered the picture. Any hope of expanding the house, however, died along with Summer Rose. It seemed like a great many things died at that point.

Modest means meant more money to set aside for other things. Like the necessary facilities to stay sharp and fit. Summer and Taiyang both fancied the arrangements made for routine training. Taiyang kept a dojo behind the house in the woods, only a short walk away along a stone path, and for a long time he kept it meticulously clean and orderly. It became something of a hobby. Summer wasn't much for dojos. She preferred the open air and the small Grimm populations deeper in the forests. It was clear which parent Ruby took after.

The dojo fell into disrepair for years following the collapse of Taiyang's sanity in the wake of his second lost love. Yang's first memories of it were of a dilapidated old building in the back, too big to be a shed, but with too few rooms to be a house. She knew because she would peek in through the windows to see all the abandoned training equipment - punching bags, wooden practice weapons, fancy looking tech for monitoring aura. Her father did not keep it a secret when she finally asked about the old building. A dozen questions about the dojo later, Yang had successfully managed to make him promise to reopen it for her someday. He might not need it anymore, but Yang had ambitious notions regarding her future.

Taiyang's private dojo did not open up again until nearly ten years after Summer died. It would have remained closed forever, but Taiyang had a new student to train whom he promised the old dojo to. In hindsight, Yang liked to imagine it was a good thing for him too. Maybe it was a sign of the steps being walked in the path toward healing. Yang couldn't have known just how deep that cut ran back then, but _now_ she had a few ideas.

She and Ruby both spent a summer helping restore the old building. Dusting shelves, carrying in boxes of new equipment while Taiyang trimmed away at the bushes and vines that threatened to reclaim the building. It would perhaps never again be as majestic as it once was, but when Yang's training began, it was good enough. It was the inside that mattered most, after all. The dojo itself breathed life into her father that she didn't remember him ever having, and so much better for it she turned out.

Her favorite things about the place when she was young were the blue practice mats that covered the floor in most of the dojo, and the mirrors that lined up so that she could see herself and her father's form from many angles at once. It might have even nurtured a little vanity. It was easy to feel confident in her looks and her form alike when the mirrors were there to remind her just how good she was getting.

She was less thankful for the mirrors these days. Once upon a time she liked an even appearance, clear cut symmetry. It suited her, highlighted the things that made her beautiful. Later on there came a point in her teenage years when it seemed to fall out of season given so many stylish ways of avoiding it. Asymmetry was a choice she made, and she made it work well, but when all else failed or she just wanted a simple change of pace, she could go back to clear-cut, be it in the form of a plain tanktop and shorts, a beautiful white gown, or her "Hunter" outfit put together for special occasions. Now, the world had made the decision for her for good - she was never going back to that sort of clear-cut beauty. She preferred asymmetry on her own terms. It'd been a few weeks, so the winces of her own reflection changed to hardened acceptance. Everywhere she looked, there were mirrors. Between the choice of getting used to it or going insane, it was an easy choice.

She didn't know why, but the thought dawned on her that madness might have been a much more tempting option had Blake died. Worse, if she'd ended up in the dark about the fate of her partner altogether. Thankfully hers was a universe where she had such an assurance, even if she still longed to know it with her own eyes.

She still had a hefty appreciation for the cool blue training mats on the floors, at least. Yang as a young girl had loved to dig her toes into them, pulling her feet away so she could see the little toe prints deep in the mat before the dimples shrank and the mat flattened once more. Like memory foam with a really, really bad memory. Yang as a seventeen year-old young woman with a missing arm had a similar appreciation, albeit for a very different reason. The red mark on the side of her face from falling face-first onto the mat could have been much worse if not for them, after all.

"Again." Taiyang said, again and again. He'd loved to give her feedback when she did well, but he hated to criticize her form directly. Instead, it was always that word. Again. Again and again. Again, until she figured out what was wrong on her own. It wasn't coming to her on its own. She wanted to shriek in frustration. Yes, her form needed ironing out, but the only _ironing out_ she needed would come in the form of a proper metal replacement for her missing limb.

Taiyang apparently disagreed. It was too important for her to stay in shape. She would need to be healthy for the procedure, and she would need options to fall back on should the hand not perform immediately to her standards. He might not have ever needed a prosthetic, but he wasn't a stranger to them. Something about that broke through despite his daughter's bullheadedness. Seeing her on her feet and ready to fight filled him with a feeling like hope.

The black tanktop she'd worn had started to dampen with sweat. Her shorts weren't long enough to hide the numerous bruises that had started to accumulate on her skin. Her stance was perfect - practiced, balanced. It was just missing one little thing, and that thing happened to be _very important_ to her, but no… she had to go and get that lopped off. She wasn't a stranger to heroics backfiring on her, but none had ever gone quite as badly as that.

Taiyang didn't care.

...no, he cared, but he wanted _her_ to not care. Her remaining arm had two jobs. Balancing, and blocking. Everything else was footwork, and there was no more slouching. He had to believe in her despite what happened. If he couldn't, he didn't know who else would.

Her father had been training her in hand-to-hand since before she was a teenager. She was passionate about it, and that passion created a loop of shared energy between her and her father. Her eagerness to improve awakened the huntsman within that had collapsed under the weight of ignored responsibilities and loss. It gave her a sense of purpose, and discipline. It was what tempered her into a responsible sister, a solid rock for her team. Without that, for all she knew, she'd have just been another party girl who flunked out of Signal.

That would've been impossible though. This was who Yang was, and the fact that she was doing nothing but getting her _ass kicked_ couldn't change that. Both arms or no.

She bent low, muscles coiled as though ready to spring. She wasn't tripping anymore at least. The past several days had been an exercise in realizations, like the fact that being down an arm threw off the weight of her entire body and called for her to relearn nearly everything she thought she knew.

Taiyang moved in predictable, easy-to-read fashions. It didn't matter that her mind knew the motions by now. She knew as well as he did that she had to teach her _muscles_ the motions, and that meant repetition…

Despite all her father's patience, she wasn't quite getting it down.

A flurry of kicks and another smack against the training mat later and the one-armed girl was floored again. She was anger, determination and stubbornness embodied once upon a time, but now? Her eyes did not run red. Her golden hair seemed almost dull in the fluorescent light of the dojo, and not even an ember flickered there. There was no fire to her form.

He'd figured that getting knocked down a couple times would bring it back for her. It usually did. That wasn't working this time.

"This would be a lot easier if you activated your aura, Yang. I mean… I'm really not liking the looks of those bruises. Your aura might help you react faster too." He said, lowering his hands and with them, his guard. Purple eyes locked on the passive motion and for a fleeting moment, he thought his daughter might seize the moment and try to knock him down. A second or two passed and he realized no such thing was about to happen. That reality struck him as unexpectedly disappointing, he realized.

Even when she had two arms, kickboxing lessons were a pain. She was more of a puncher. She preferred to use legs for what they were made for - moving. Not kicking. She knew she'd been looking forward to a chance to spar again. She'd told herself not to get her hopes up for a great performance, but there had been no way for her to prepare for just how far short of her expectations she'd fall. Even Mercury Black relied on his arms to keep him balanced in the midst of his artful maneuvers and kicks. Contemplating that thought made her keenly aware of a bitter chill in the center of her chest. One she couldn't afford to dwell on for long.

"It's fine. It'll help me learn." She finally spoke, a solid ten seconds after her father. He could hear the hint of irritation in her tone, barely laced into an impassive expression to accompany the softness of her words. The adrenaline was there, at least - it gave a shaky quality to her voice. A few seconds later, she remembered that those words wouldn't be assuring without a grin pasted on her lips to accompany them, so she fixed that. The smile that grew on her lips might as well have been a grimace with how her father reacted to it. He'd already tensed in reaction to her silence, but the grin looked like it struck him with the force of a slap to his face.

"Yang, seriously, I'm not about to hit the news as the guy that beat up his kid." _Especially not the guy that beat up his recently crippled, extremely emotionally vulnerable and demonstrably mentally unstable daughter._ "Aura up. We can take five for those bruises to clear, and then maybe we can actually start getting something out of your training. You have to...

"Fully apply myself. I know." Her lips twitched, the forged smile on her face wavering.

"...and if you're not using your aura, you're not... applying yourself." He nodded his head very slowly as he spoke, as though expecting her to say the words with him. He received no answer - she merely kept her stance, her eyes fixed on him expectantly.

Finally, he sighed.

"...alright Yang. One more time, but **that's it** unless you aura up."

"I only need one more shot." She said, but there was no spark of flame to accompany them. The words struck her as hollow even as they left her lips. They couldn't have fooled her father any better.

Yang had such a powerful voice that she could kiai with the loudest of them, so when Yang's back hit the mat a final time, even Ruby, waiting back in the house, could tell that training was over with the way Yang's voice cut out into a pained groan.

Thus the session ended, not with a whimper, but with the sound of Yang's butt hitting the floor. The show was over. Curtains closed. Time to go home.

Taiyang had seen his daughter take to fighting like a natural, once upon a time. Knowing the passion and talent that was there made it impossible to just let go. He couldn't let that passion die - it would be like letting the Yang Xiao Long he knew and cherished die. She'd been through enough already.

As he locked up the dojo, she walked ahead, fingers flexing at her side, squeezing into a fist over and over. There was a rigidness to her posture that told him all he needed to know about how Yang felt regarding her performance.

"Yang..." He began, causing her to stop in her tracks. She took in a deep breath of the outside air and made a conscious effort to loosen up, her shoulders falling slightly as she turned to face him.

"Guess I'm just not well enough _armed_ to start up training again." She said, the pun slipping from her lips as though it weren't her sixth pun that day. She was pretty sure she'd already used that one on Ruby, too. She was over her limit, but she'd earned a little bit of leniency given the beating she'd been willing to take. He'd pretend he didn't notice, but they both knew he did. Yang could see the twitch in the corner of his mouth. It was enough to make the burning sting of failure cool by a few degrees.

"It'd be easier if you used your aura… I'm just saying." He jogged up to catch up with her. She didn't answer.

"Yang?" He raised a brow. "You hear me?"

She snapped. "Yes!"

A moment later, her father's stunned silence prompted her to try again.

"I mean… yeah, I hear you." She continued, her voice quieting. Her left hand rose to grab a fistful of her own hair. "I can't do it." It was not up for debate, judging by the way she said it. He opened his mouth only to close it again, unsure what to say in that instant.

He was alone with his thoughts as he walked beside his daughter back to the house. He knew she didn't want to talk about it, that much was clear. He got it. Whatever thought crossed his mind regarding the matter went unvoiced. Instead, as they stepped inside, he moved toward the kitchen without a pause.

"I'll get you some ice. How's the arm?" She heard him shout across the house.

"Thanks. Still gone. No, it doesn't hurt right now. Everything else does, though, thanks."

He'd never have agreed to actual sparring with his crippled daughter if he knew she didn't have aura to protect her. He wasn't sure if he should feel bad for encouraging her to try, or if he should feel good for getting her to actually _do_ something at home. Yang didn't exactly give him any clues - she simply shuffled off presumably to change, shower, or otherwise cool down, stopped only briefly by a concerned younger sister who'd heard something about needing ice immediately following a sparring session. Yang didn't give her long enough to get a good look at the bruises.

The night ended early - dinner, then quiet. No one was in the mood to watch movies or reruns that night. Even Ruby seemed content with quiet in her own room. Yang considered checking on her for a mere second before deciding it'd be better to not pry. She didn't imagine she'd be much help to her younger sister, given her own state.

Silence took over in the house, and the haunted quality it held following Summer's demise returned. It hit all three of them like cold water poured on their faces. Home was a good thing in a lot of ways, but it was also the place where a pair of happy childhoods went once upon a time to die.

Yang couldn't sleep, but she didn't know why. Her whole body ached, but it felt good to her. Even the bruises. She'd got on her feet. Got a little exercise. Her dad even treated her like she wasn't useless while they fought. Sure, at the time it was easy to drown in self-pity and the feeling of failure, but a little time to think brought a little reason back into the picture. She would need more _time_ to have a chance at functioning without her arm.

…aaannnddd then she'd dropped the bomb that she couldn't use her aura even if she tried. Just like that, his whole demeanor had changed. Her hopes for future training sessions flatlined in an instant. If she couldn't defend herself properly, he wouldn't keep it up. He cared too much. It wasn't the most pleasant thought, but she supposed she should be grateful for that. She could think of someone with a much less considerate father who happily would have pushed her despite a lack of aura.

Weiss was stronger than she was, though. Maybe that wasn't always true, but it was now for sure.

At least she'd managed to find a little bit of good in the aches her body felt.

She'd lied awake in bed for an hour when she finally heard shuffling outside the door, then a very light tap. Apparently Yang wasn't the only one having trouble sleeping.

"Come in." Yang whispered, but in that firm, loud sort of way that makes a person wonder why they're whispering at all.

The door cracked open and a faint bit of light from the hall peeked in as Ruby stepped inside. She closed the door behind her silently, and the room fell dark again.

"...can I turn on the light?" She asked.

"Go for it." Yang replied, preemptively shielding her eyes with her forearm.

When light filled the room, Ruby made her way over to the bed. Yang sat up to make room as Ruby hopped up to sit as well. These sorts of things happened sometimes amongst siblings. Especially between she and Ruby. Taiyang's despondance as a parent left Yang to do a lot of the parenting when Ruby would have nightmares, questions. The fact that it hadn't happened at Beacon was almost surprising. Patch seemed to bring some old habits back, though.

"Hey, Yang..."

"Can't sleep either huh?" Yang managed a weary smirk. Such was the face of a girl who very much wanted to sleep, but couldn't.

"I'm still… I mean, I'm alright. I'm just thinking… do you think Dad would let us have a few guests? Soon maybe?" Ruby asked. The question felt oddly timed, but it wasn't an unwelcome thing to consider.

Yang could think of someone who she'd love to see. She could also think of someone who she was terrified to see. Then she silently mulled over the unpleasant fact that these people were one and the same.

"...he'd probably be all for it. If you're talking about what I think you're talking about." Yang said. Ruby simply nodded to confirm it.

"Weiss really wants to come see us she says. She's worried about us. I told her we're fine but… I mean. I'd like to see her. I figured you might too." Ruby whispered.

"Well, I don't know Ruby. I'm not fine. Are you?" Yang asked. She didn't let Ruby answer, because a more important question came to mind almost immediately after the words left her lips.

"...wait, what? How is Weiss talking to you?" Yang blinked. Did she miss a memo about the CCT towers? What if the internet was back? Nothing made her miss the internet like being stuck at home with a small list of things to do to keep herself occupied.

"She sent a letter from Atlas." Ruby said. Yang silently mourned the fact that she would still have to go without proper television, internet, and non-local communication. Then she lost interest. There were more important things in life than the CCTs benefits, like raven-haired faunus girls with hypnotizing golden eyes and impossibly cute cat ears hidden under a ribbon.

"Did she say where Blake is?" Yang spoke with a sudden change in interest. Ruby could immediately sense the level of urgency that hadn't been there before. It didn't surprise her that Blake would be her sister's first concern - the sheer level of effort that usually went into _not_ talking about Blake said _everything_ about Yang's fears.

Ruby could still remember her older sister splayed out on the pavement. Blake wouldn't leave her side. Blake wouldn't let go of her hand. She refused medical attention until she lost consciousness, letting her wound bring her dangerously close to bleeding out. She wouldn't stop saying how sorry she was. Ruby didn't know if it was Blake's fault. She knew Blake well enough to know that she would have apologized even if it wasn't her fault. Even if it had been Blake's mistake, Ruby found herself incapable of faulting anyone but the _maniac_ that she heard had struck her sister.

"She said Blake's with her." Ruby hesitated for a brief moment. She didn't imagine mentioning the fact that Blake had nowhere to go after Beacon would do anything good for Yang's stability. "...she took charge of looking after Blake in her recovery she said. She let on that it would probably be a package deal. That's why I ask… two extra girls in the house isn't something I want to just assume he'll be cool with."

Yang frowned a bit, and she found herself disappointed in herself as she realized there was a part of her that didn't like the idea of the rest of her team seeing her like this. She might not have been in quite as bad of a state she was in the first week she'd been home, but her road to recovery was making itself known as a long, arduous _bitch_ of a road. The fact that she'd gotten a lot better about keeping it to herself didn't make it better. She had a whole philosophy of combat - no, a philosophy of _problem-solving in general_ to rethink now that she'd had the flaws of her old tactics so readily demonstrated to her over the course of the Vytal Festival and beyond. Coasting on rage and bullheaded determination got her in this mess. Treating her semblance like a universal solution to all physical conflict. She was still wrapping her head around the monumental task that was returning to full performance.

Given what happened when they visited Summer, Yang knew she was still reeling from the events of Beacon. She was traumatized. She and Ruby hadn't talked about it, even if Yang knew Ruby wanted to at times. Yang knew that she herself was not ready, and would not be ready at any foreseeable point in the near future.

Some things were best kept between mother and daughter, and Ruby seemed to agree with that without the two girls ever needing to discuss it.

Yang's contemplative silence might have unnerved Ruby, though, so her younger girl found herself suddenly wracking her brain with something else relevant to say. When it hit her she found herself surprised that she hadn't said the words sooner.

"...She did mention that Blake made a full recovery too. I almost forgot about that." Yang exhaled a breath of air like a hiss in response.

"How could you almost forget to-" Yang's heart leapt in her chest such that she couldn't be bothered to complete her sentence. Then came the sinking feeling along with a flash of red shaped like a long blade that crossed her mind's eye. It was a feeling she had wanted so badly to keep buried, but she couldn't.

Her whole body shivered at the scream that felt so vivid in her memory. For the faintest moment, she felt heat build in her skin before dissipating, still too cold to burn. She wanted to see Blake again - maybe seeing her safe would make it easier to sleep at night. Maybe it'd make it easier to deal with… everything.

Yang let out a conflicted groan. Maybe seeing Blake would make everything worse. The fact that she'd have to show herself in the weakened state she was in to her partner wasn't a pleasant realization. The fact that Blake ended up having to save her partner's life didn't help either. She couldn't help but feel responsible for what happened to Blake. She'd failed to protect her after all.

"...so that's a no..?" All Ruby had to react to was the groan. Yang could _hear_ Ruby's frown in her voice. She shook her head vigorously.

"Dad will probably say yes… he knows how important a team can be. He wouldn't keep us separated so long as he had the ability to do something to prevent it." Taiyang wasn't a bad father, and she knew it. He wasn't a _bad_ man. He was just a man. Something about everything that had happened recently made it hard for Yang to fault him at all for the way he fell apart all those years ago and made her take care of Ruby in his place. All the fear he felt for his two daughters was clear. All the relief he felt when they returned home was clearer.

"What about you Yang?"

Yang inhaled a breath, and then exhaled a sigh at Ruby's question. The words left her lips before she really thought about them.

"I'd give my other arm to see Blake again, if I had to." She would have been surprised had she heard her own words, but it was like she didn't.

"You care a lot about her." Ruby made her observation quietly, and Yang pondered briefly if Ruby was afraid to say anything about it. Yang nearly shook her head in denial, but there was no point. Even if she didn't really care, she wouldn't have wanted to show that to Ruby.

"Yeah. She's my partner. We… kinda went through the same hell there." Yang shrugged her shoulders, her eyes turning away from Ruby, deliberate in avoiding her gaze. She didn't really want to see her sister's reactions to whatever she had to say about Blake. She also didn't want to change the subject. She had put so much effort into not talking about it that having the opportunity was like having catharsis within arms reach for a great knotted feeling in her chest.

"She cares a lot about you too. She wouldn't leave your side, you know… after you got hurt." Ruby didn't feel a need to avoid looking at Yang. If anything, she felt like it was important she did, even if her older sister wouldn't meet her eyes.

Yang's lips twitched in reaction to Ruby's words, the corners of her mouth involuntarily downturning, her lower lip beginning to tremble. How Yang was managing to hold back the tears that Ruby could see in her eyes, she wasn't sure.

"...it's okay, Yang." Ruby tried to comfort her. It earned another vigorous shake of Yang's head. Ruby knew. Yang had confided in her once, days before the first team fight at the tournament. Yang had told her of the bond she'd worked to forge between she and her partner - she tended to act like she was pretending the conversation never happened, but it did. It was the bond that changed and twisted in her heart the day she lured Blake from the library with a laser pointer. The words that left Yang's lips before she could fully understand what she was saying when she offered Blake a dance. The feeling like shame she felt for the flirty wink she gave her partner. The sinking feeling that plagued her when she watched Blake dance all night with Sun. She never got to fully elaborate on that point. Strange things had happened that night after Ruby left the dance floor. Things that Ruby couldn't stand to think about, herself.

"I think you should see her. I bet seeing that you're okay-" She paused to correct herself. "...I mean, seeing that you're **alive** and **recovering** … might make her feel better too."

Yang couldn't focus on Ruby's words. There was a feeling of need that rested in her heart since long ago that burned and ached for the raven-haired girl who'd she'd once written off as a "lost cause", and it had been there long before the point in time that Yang had confided to her sister about. The realization ran deeper than that. The only person she'd said everything to was Summer.

The feeling had gone unsaid, pushed aside for all the inconvenience it posed. It would continue to go unsaid, if Yang had her way. The light, floating feelings like the ones that she felt when she held Blake's hand in hers amidst the crowd the night of their single shared dance felt far away and unreal… and somehow irrelevant in the face of everything that had just happened.

She'd sacrificed in her vain attempt to save Blake's life from the man with the red blade, so unpleasantly similar to the sketched person amongst Blake's scribbled notes in class. It was a sacrifice that might not have actually been necessary, but…

"Love makes you do funny things." She thought. She didn't realize the words left her lips. Unfortunately for her, Ruby did. It earned a knowing smile from her younger sister, but Ruby seemed to think better of teasing Yang for it. If things had been different, it would have been fun to harass Yang over it, but now? She couldn't bring herself to do anything other than grant Yang any chance to feel something positive that came by.

Yang caring so much about someone else couldn't _possibly_ have been a bad thing. From what she'd understood about the event, what Yang had tried to do for Blake struck her as perhaps the most brave and heroic thing that happened that night. Well… one of the most brave and heroic things. There were a lot of those at the Battle of Beacon.

It was cute, too. Yang wasn't one to pine over anyone. Usually it was other people pining for her. When you knew, though, you started to see the little things that gave Yang away about her feelings for her partner. Blake wasn't the easiest person to read, but she knew her sister at least.

"Yeah, it does, doesn't it? But it makes you do incredible things too." Ruby managed a smile. Focusing on Yang made it easier to ignore the pang of hurt she felt in her own chest.

"Huh?" Yang blinked.

"...you just said, 'love makes you do funny things'." Ruby quirked her head slightly to the side, eyes narrowing.

"...I said that out loud?" Yang didn't sound panicked, but she did sound a little angry. Ruby preferred the idea that the red that rose to Yang's cheeks was embarrassment rather than anger. She was right, even if she didn't know it.

"Yeah. You did."

"Oh. Well damn." Yang finished pathetically. Her eyes found the pillow at her side and she craved desperately to bury her face in it. She didn't. Yang was still Ruby's sister, and she couldn't let the night remain a sleepless one. The night went on, and words eventually ran out. Ruby drifted off to sleep in her sister's bed when she finally became too exhausted to let her own mind plague her.

Yang couldn't sleep. She felt cold. The night began to turn to day, and Yang found herself rising and stepping out of her room, out of the house, walking the path to her father's dojo. There was energy in her muscles that wasn't going away. Maybe she'd be able to find her spark. Maybe her aura would return if she just kept practicing.

Sleep finally came after one-handed pushups - Yang didn't count how many. When she drifted off on the cool blue mattress, she finally felt a hint of warmth return to her bones, and she felt golden eyes on her. The memory of Blake Belladonna eased her heart to a point of rest at last.

Taiyang found her snoring contentedly in the middle of the floor. It took a little effort, but when Yang finally woke, she would find herself in her own bed. He'd make sure of it.

* * *

 **Waits between updates aren't ideal, I know. I kept churning out versions of this chapter I wasn't content with, but I feel like it's presentable enough now. The previous two chapters have also been edited and updated to acknowledge canonical events along with other readability concerns. So... the only real way this initially diverts from canon is that Blake was too injured to run right away, and Ruby woke up from the silver eyes incident early enough to be conscious when she came to Patch. All the other changes stem from those things.**

 **The next part will be the lead-in to a reunion for the team, and that's something I take pretty seriously. Hopefully it won't take me too long to get it looking alright. Either way, thank you for coming this far with me if you are still reading! It means a lot to me. As always, please feel free to leave me a review about my story. They are fuel for the fire! There will be at least two more chapters before this story is wrapped up - maybe more if it ends up making sense.**


	4. Blackbird

She could see Vale from the window of the transport.

The once gray, overwhelming clouds had faded away since the day everything came tumbling down, revealing a beautiful, clear and untouched sky. The streets were brimming with life against all odds. She had pictured Vale as the same dismal, fiery mess that the library had been. The way the streets were beyond Vale where she could do naught but lie helplessly on the ground and gaze at the damage her existence had led to. Instead, life moved on, and nature progressed despite the hiccups of civilization's progress.

The closer one got to the ruined tower, the less people one would find, and the thicker the streets ran with Grimm - anyone could see the swarms of them moving from the vantage point of an airship, even from a large distance. Law enforcement was everywhere - flashes of blue and red. Even huntsman and huntresses - dozens of unique weapons, hair colors, talents, littered the place as they came closer to their designated landing zone. Grimm numbers were low there, but they would never stay that way without brave men and women fighting to keep them that way. Every day, there was a struggle. The lines between Grimm and the remaining fragments of civilization in Vale were in constant flux.

Within the fluctuating safe zones, humanity continued to try and live as normal. Cars in the streets, shops open. Soon enough it became almost easy, it seemed. They couldn't hide in their homes forever, and a swift departure was out of the question for some. The CCT being destroyed made everything ten times more difficult.

When the transport touched down, the first thing Blake found her eyes drawn to was the statuesque silhouette of the dragon-like Grimm that had destroyed it. It struck a fearful chord within, though Weiss was quick both to notice and explain.

"It's inert. Frozen. It might not even be alive." Weiss said.

Blake skepticism apparently knew no bounds. Weiss couldn't help but silently lament at the faunus' pessimism as Blake spoke. "How does anyone even know? There can't be safe zones that close to the tower. I could see the Grimm from the ship." Blake's eyes never turned away from that creature. She'd lost a lot of blood in the battle. She never got to see what happened atop the tower, but she didn't have to in order to feel chilled to the bone by the beast.

"You're right. They say it's waaaay too thick with Grimm to start working on the tower, so efforts are all going into backup towers. I guess the tower is a permanent danger zone, and it will be until they get rid of that giant… thing." Weiss spoke, turning to leave the shuttle. "...and Ruby's drunkard uncle confirmed that monster is inert. He had to get close to it when he went to recover Ruby."

Blake was slow to catch up. A million thoughts crossed her mind.

The White Fang had been pulling out, but they must have left sleepers behind. Adam had too much influence to just let his forces ignore Vale. Even if there was no tactical benefit to further attacks in the area, it was the closest thing Blake had had to home. She knew him too well to assume he'd let it go.

 **"Everything you love…"**

The was a flash of red in her mind's eye, and then gold. She shook her head. She didn't need to be picturing things. She didn't need to be thinking about him.

...no, she did. If she didn't, no one else would.

She began to step away from the transport anxiously, her arms folded over her middle, gripping her elbows like it wasn't a beautiful day in Vale as the pair left the safety of their landing zone and stepped out into the streets of Vale by the docks, not far from a modest inn that was meant to serve as their one-night stop before Patch.

It would take a day. The boats took a much longer time to coordinate without the CCT. Local communication only worked to a point, and the waters tested it. That suited her fine. A day to do nothing but rest was definitely an appealing thought… and as she stood, the ocean air was invigorating. Seagulls flew about the docks, bugs crawled along the walkways. It was like the battle had never happened out here.

She inhaled deep breaths, and she felt her muscles relax. It was tempting to plop down and sit, basking in the smells of the sea.

The quiet made her think of her team - huddled around a board game in the middle of the library, hushed whispers gradually increasing in volume until faculty reminded them how close they were to being kicked out. They'd been so carefree.

She did not feel vindicated, knowing that she'd been right all along. She had been wrong to assume that they would be okay.

Her feet guided her to the edge of the docks, and she felt a call in her heart that dared her to step off the ledge and into the water for no reason other than she could. The lighter sensation of the feeling of standing at the edge of a cliff, knowing there was no way other than down.

There was a thrill associated with it. There was a pull toward the water. For some reason, it made her think of Yang.

Yang's face in her mind was golden flames and violet flowers. A row of white teeth in a goofy, cocky grin. Her voice spoke soft, reassuring words in Blake's ears.

Blake's last real memories of Yang's face were of a visage contorted into rage the likes of which Blake had never seen on the girl - a beautiful creature changing into a nightmare. There were tears in her eyes as her form ignited into flames, and for a fleeting moment, Blake felt like everything would be okay.

The blade in her flesh reminded her otherwise as it was ripped from her wound. Blake knew him too well. Yang might as well have been leaping into a trap designed explicitly for her.

Her heart stopped for a moment as he struck with his blade, and Blake's limbs went numb with shock and sorrow...

"Blake?"

Suddenly, Blake was standing at the edge of the docks again. Her eyes burned, and despite her surprise, she could only muster the energy to turn slowly to meet Weiss.

"Are you… okay?"

"I was just… thinking." Blake's hands lowered back to her sides.

"What's on your mind?" Weiss asked.

"I don't know about going to Patch. I think maybe just you should go..." Blake's eyes turned away, her ribbon twitching atop her head. Weiss' reply was as predictable as it was explosive. Blake hadn't found the words to explain why, yet.

"Out of the question!" Weiss practically shouted, fixing Blake with a disbelieving, icy glare. "You nearly got eviscerated by some maniac. You just now get back on your feet and now you're thinking of being anywhere -but- with your team?" She shook her head, eyes narrowing. "That's _stupid_ , Blake… and hey! Whatever happened to your promise?"

Blake bit her tongue. She had expected it to go something like this. She simply turned her head down in reply.

"...you're right. Sorry I brought it up." She murmured. Weiss bent forward to try and get a better look at the faunus' face, the disbelief on her face still clear as day.

"...What do you mean I'm right?" Weiss questioned skeptically. That was way too easy.

"...I... I mean, you're making a good point. I should be counting on my team. We have better odds together than alone." Blake's reply was quiet, defeated, flat. It was completely, utterly unsatisfying. Weiss shook her head, deciding against pushing it further. Blake had tipped her hand, and that was the most she was getting out of it.

"You sound like you don't believe yourself, but okay. Stop looking so glum! We're alive, we're going to Patch. Don't you think Ruby and Yang will be happy to see you're okay?" Weiss rested her hands on her hips. The way Blake's lips twitched in response was both annoying and concerning.

"...yeah." Yang's face glowed in her mind again, and she tried not to picture her eyes closing, red liquid seeping from her neck. She shouldn't have been glad it was only Yang's hand, but she was. It could have been her head.

Blake tried not to think about what she'd do if it'd played out that way. Her head remained hung, but before she could move to walk away from the docks, Weiss was in front of her, hands planted on her shoulders, frosty blue eyes directly in her face.

"Listen to me." Weiss said. Only when Blake's eyes looked up to meet hers did Weiss continue.

"It's not your fault."

Blake's eyes immediately averted again as she grit her teeth. She seemed to think better of talking, though, so Weiss continued.

"We all had to make tough calls and that was inevitable - it's part of the job. But we all came out _alive_ , and we're all going to heal and be stronger for it. We're lucky! We could have ended up like Team JNPR, but we still have everyone." She let go of Blake's shoulders and stepped back, giving her space again.

Weiss silently took it as a victory when snapped Blake out of whatever pit of negativity she was seemingly intent on dwelling in. "What do you mean? What happened to Team JNPR?"

Then Weiss' face froze. That wasn't exactly the victory she'd wanted. She struggled to find the words, but she found herself woefully underprepared to share the bad news.

"Weiss!" Blake snapped.

Weiss forced words from her lips, sugarcoating the best she could without lying outright. Blake would find out eventually anyway, after all. "...Mostly superficial injuries I think… Ren, Jaune, and Nora were all okay, as far as I remember..." Weiss scratched the back of her head.

"What happened to Pyrrha?" Blake's eyes had started to widen, Weiss' attempt to buy time failing to go unnoticed.

"...she's… not…" Weiss hesitated. She closed her eyes tight and then shook her head. She tried again.

"She's-"

"Dead." Blake finished for her, her tone flat and empty. A moment passed and she closed her eyes tight, fingers flexing at her sides helplessly.

"She's… **fucking** … dead." Anger leaked into Blake's voice.

Weiss couldn't help but find Blake's anger to be a pleasant change from the dismal state she'd been in. Weiss only wished it didn't have to come from this.

"...she made a tough call too, and… they don't always work out. Like I said, part of the job. You and Yang survived. So… be grateful." Weiss frowned as she spoke. She'd had time to do her emotional processing regarding Pyrrha's fate. The red-haired woman had been her first choice for a partner once. Respect had always been there. It still was.

Blake whirled to face the tower in the distance, eyes narrowing at the great dragon resting on top of it. A moment passed before she spoke. "How?"

"I don't know. The only person who saw what happened was Ruby, and, well… she hasn't exactly had a proper chance to fill me in. Hey, Blake, are you okay? I was worried while you were recovering, I've been worried since we touched down in Vale, and I'm starting to get even more worried now that you've got that look in your eye..."

"The White Fang had specific ideals they pursued. Unleashing hordes of Grimm on a school with both human and faunus students makes as much sense as Pyrrha, the strongest person I know, being the one person we know who had to go and die. Doesn't not knowing why this happened **bother** you?"

Weiss wrinkled her nose. "Not this again."

"Something else has been going on and we all know it. Everything that happened with Torchwick, the strange woman he had with him… then whatever stunt Mercury must have pulled in order to make Yang think he attacked her…"

"Blake, you're right in one way. We are missing key pieces of the puzzle, so trying to fit the ones we have together over and over isn't going to work. We have to approach this as a team, and even then, only when we're ready. We need Ruby, we need Yang. **You** need Yang." Weiss declared.

Blake exhaled a shaky breath at that.

"...and she probably really needs you too right now. The only reason she even knows you're okay is because of the letter I sent Ruby. She's probably worried sick about you." Weiss continued.

"I can't." Blake shook her head.

"What do you mean you can't? You **can** . All you have to do is hold your horses, sleep the night off, and hop on a boat with me so we can figure out the next step from there." Weiss could feel the annoyance creeping into her chest again.

"He'll kill her next time." Blake shook her head again, her head lowering.

"That guy you mentioned is just one guy. With all of us together, what's he going to do to us?" Weiss crossed her arms.

"He'll kill all of you. Then me." Blake's voice was flat and dead again.

"Uh… what?"

"... **Adam** cut through Yang's aura in a single blow. I don't care what they say about Qrow or Taiyang, if they don't know the way he works, the way he fights? He'll kill them. He doesn't train to fight Grimm, he's trained to kill **people,** and that includes huntsmen!" Blake found the words tumbling from her lips in frustration - there was no _making Weiss understand_. Her words earned her a long, drawn out silence from Weiss, and for as long as it lasted, she was thankful for it.

"...What are you getting at Blake?" Weiss finally asked, suspicion in her voice.

"...forget it. I said I'd go to Patch." Blake dismissed the question, trying to start walking away. Weiss matched her pace effortlessly.

"No, I'm not letting this go. Tell me what is going on with you!"

Blake exhaled an exhausted breath, and before she knew it she was talking against despite her wishes.

"I couldn't fight him... He…" She gritted her teeth. "He had to have redirected Yang's strength against her. That's what happens when you give him time to focus. Yang didn't have a chance, and - _dammit_ \- I should have warned her. I should have told her about him sooner, instead all I did was mention it after the Mercury thing and-"

Weiss' eyes widened as realization dawned that this _maniac_ being discussed was the same person who Blake once called a partner. She tried to cut Blake off before her state deteriorated further. Knowing the personal stake in this lended a lot of clarity that Weiss had up until then been lacking.

"...Blake. Calm down. You're no safer alone. At least together we have a chance. If we run, we'll run together, okay?" Weiss spoke, and she wasn't even sure of the words leaving her lips. "You had better **not** go storming off alone again."

"...I can't just sit here like this!" Blake cried.

"You're still recovering! Sure you can walk now, but you're definitely not in fighting condition. We don't know -anything- about how bad the danger zones are in Vale. As is a pack of Grimm will pick you off before you can even locate some White Fang person to start questioning!" Weiss was ready to fight Blake every step of the way on this if she had to.

"It doesn't matter." Blake began to storm away, much faster now.

"It does! Just stay with me until we can see the others. Blake!" Weiss moved to catch up.

"I can't see them." Blake shook her head adamantly. Weiss again invaded her personal space, a hand catching Blake's shoulder and spinning her to face the heiress.

"Why?" Weiss' impatience was growing. She could feel it in her fists, in her arms, behind her eyes. "...just what _happened_ to you and Yang that is making you like this? Did I miss something?"

Blake snatched Weiss' hand and pushed it away.

"Did you miss the part where I got a sword ran through me and Yang got her arm sliced off? Worry about your own problems Weiss. You're better off with the others, yeah. But they're better off without me. And don't **touch** me." She all but growled.

Weiss gave pause at that. Blake's anger often gave way rather than blossoming. Had she misstepped? What did she say wrong?

"...Blake, please, help me understand what this is about! I want to _help_ you!" She wasn't sure what she was sorry for precisely, but she could feel the guilt regardless.

"I already agreed to come to Patch even if I think it's a bad idea. I made my bed and now I'll lie in it. Just like every other mistake I seem to have made since coming to Vale." Blake spoke bitterly, ignoring Weiss' words.

There was no use. Weiss would have to try again later.

"...you'll feel better when we get there." Weiss tried to assure her.

Blake didn't answer. The mere idea of being close to Yang was a nightmare. Adam had made a promise, not just a threat.

A flash of red. Drops of shining, golden blood seemingly to float down to the floor. The confusion that flooded Yang's features as she flew gracelessly to the ground. The way her eyes fell shut as she hit the floor.

Him walking closer to her, his blade drawn.

Blake shivered. She was forming a plan. She just needed time. When the passes for the trip to Patch were ordered, she crumpled the ticket in her hand. Only when Weiss moved on ahead did she let it drift away in the wind.

* * *

In the middle of the night, Weiss heard something. It started as a faint, distant tapping sound. She ignored it. It'd go away.

It didn't.

 _Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap._

She hoped and prayed to every god she could think of that it'd stop. She didn't want to get up.

 _Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap._

She threw the covers off of her body, a burst of energy coming to her fingertips in the form of a violent spark of anger. Weiss' face turned red as she angrily rose to direct her attentions to the source of the tapping. At the window there was a single black bird, pecking at the corner of the glass.

Weiss' eye twitched. "I just… want to sleep. I just wanted to _sleep_ … I just-" She smacked her fist into her pillow, burying her face in it as well. She hadn't had decent sleep in nearly a week, and some hellish little blackbird was harassing her in the middle of the night.

She could hear it get louder and faster even through the pillow.

"...if I don't deal with this now I'm going to accidentally summon something and then-" She muttered beneath her breath as she rose from bed, and stepped along the floor in her nightgown to the window. The bird did not flee as she approached, but continued to tap.

She glared at the little beast, hand lowering to open the window and scare the bird away, but before she could do that, she noticed two things that were odd.

It's eyes were red.

...and there was a crumpled slip of paper in the bird's beak. Shaped like…

Weiss rushed to open the window. The crow immediately flew away, but the odd scrap of paper had fallen into the room on the floor.

This was by far the strangest encounter with a bird she'd ever had in her life. She knelt to pick up the paper, uncrumpling the corners and flattening it. Even in the dark, she could make out words, just not very well. She took the paper to the lamp and turned it on, wincing at the light for a short moment, blinking rapidly to adjust before looking at the date of the slip.

It was still good. The slip expired at midnight of the next day. It was for a boat to Patch.

Her face paled. She immediately whirled to the bed over by the doorway. She hadn't even stopped to look in Blake's direction.

There was no one there. She'd gone and did it, and now Weiss had to set that stubborn faunus girl straight.

Without thinking, Weiss bolted, cursing beneath her breath. She wasn't about to let Blake sabotage her own life _again_ by running away from this. Weiss was the best teammate of team RWBY. She _had_ to bring Blake back for the trip to Patch. So what if she missed the next boat? She couldn't show her face without her other teammate.

She strapped Myrtenaster to her belt, skipping the morning routine in favor of standard combat attire and a swift exit as she took the ticket with her into the night. There were hundreds of places Blake could have gone. Weiss intended to check every last one if she had to.

The same small blackbird perched atop a building ahead of her. She narrowed her eyes for a brief moment, and then began to follow it, arms raising in an elegant fashion as she called forth glyphs to guide her ascension to the top of the building where it stood. She didn't know why she did it, but it was a gut feeling. The blackbird was leading her.

She knew crows were smart, but this was taking it to an extreme. As an afterthought she snatched her scroll from her side, fumbling with the touch screen for a moment and hurriedly speaking into the speaker as she ran.

"Hey, this is Weiss. Something came up, we might run a little late. Nothing too serious yet, but if anything weird happens I'll call. Thanks."

She'd never actually met Taiyang. Hopefully he was the sort to forgive a little tardiness, by say a day or two, worst case scenario.

* * *

 **This chapter was the hardest one for me to write, and I rewrote it around four times. I am still not sure I'm satisfied with it. I may make some small edits to it going forward to make it easier to read. I also know it's a little shorter than the others, but that's because it had to be. Now that I'm past this hurdle I'm hoping updates will be more regular again. Not much longer to go I think, maybe another two chapters. Maybe three? We'll see! If you got this far, thanks again for reading. It means more to me than I know how to express. Please leave me a review if you liked it!**


	5. Cut Apart

**It's been rough lately, but I finally think I've gotten over the hurdle and I can work on this again. I won't go into details, but to those who have expressed interest in my story, I am nonetheless sorry for taking... what, two months to update? Anyway, I hope the chapter is worth the wait! I've been working on it on and off for quite a long time.  
**

* * *

In Vale, autumn came through the night carrying blessings from the future. A promise of an inevitable winter. A storm began to roll in despite the lack of warnings given over the course of the day prior. A chill sank into her bones as the sun set and gave way to a shattered moon, but the cold was no stranger - nor was the night, in fact.

It was the rooftops first as she made her way deeper into Vale, but this was a fruitless attempt. Huntsmen and Huntresses used the rooftops as much as she, if not more. She could see them as she moved, given away by gunfire and muzzle flash, brightly colored weapons and unusual attire. The alleys were secondary routes, along with the old fire escapes and balconies along the way. She knew her feet would have to hit the ground eventually. When that time came, she had to be ready. The Grimm wouldn't simply ignore her.

The streets were exposed when the time came to traverse them. Between the buildings there was great cover, both to avoid being seen, and to avoid crossfire or the actions of Grimm. Those were the good things.

It still felt like bad idea. How many Grimm were infesting the streets of Vale couldn't be overstated.  
She was on the edge of a permanent danger zone. When she'd heard about activity in Vale she knew only a bit of what to expect. Danger zones sounded bad, but…

The street was choked with black, white, and red shapes packed so thick it was hard to tell the Creeps from the Beowolves. They were smaller Grimm - no Ursai or Death Stalkers. These ones could be handled if engaged in manageable numbers. The problem was that getting caught in the street meant dealing with far more than that. At least this far in, being chased around for being in a danger zone was a non-issue. Law enforcement never came out this far. Huntsmen and Huntresses wouldn't either without very good reason. There was no incentive for them to try something crazy and risky at night. It wouldn't make a difference to the Grimm.

They had to know she was there. She was a bundle of negativity, after all. That wasn't news to her. It didn't matter. She didn't wait to hear their roars or see their movement before she rushed as quickly as she could. Such encounters with the Grimm were becoming routine. This said nothing good about her decision making processes, she realized.

" _As if I haven't figured that out by now,"_ a bitter voice in her mind spoke.

As she made her way out of the alleyways, her eyes scanned the buildings briefly before Gambol Shroud switched into pistol form and she hurled the blade upward and forward, a gunshot propelling its blade upward to the ledge. The hook sank deep into the bricks beyond - enough to swing across between the alleyways. Her aura screamed dozens of Grimm all around her, but they were distractions. She had no time for them. She wasn't sure how many close calls she had, nor did she care.

As she reached the next rooftop, she didn't slow to see how many more she'd attracted the attention of. She had things to tend to here. Important things.

Important matters like…

Blake reached up to brush a stray lock of ebon hair from her face. She'd had a plan. It wasn't coming to her. Her mind rebelled against her - what was she going to do? With Grimm on her tail, the only thing she was going to do was…

Run.

She was glad the rooftops were clear of Huntsmen. The streets were clogged with Ursai and a variety of other larger Grimm she had no name for - they didn't cover those ones in Port's classes yet. The presence of even a single other person here would be too much trouble. She made no effort to be stealthy about much of anything. The Grimm wouldn't care if she wasn't perfectly silent. They would find her if she remained in any place long enough for them to sense her despair. Her confusion. Her regret. Most of all, her guilt.

She had a reason for what she was doing, yet she didn't. It was instinct that led her this way. Reason would never drive her into such a dangerous place as this. The dragon loomed, less far away now than it had been since before it was frozen. The CCT tower was a macabre landmark now. The body of the dragon attracted Grimm seemingly by the hundreds, and the flow of them hadn't slowed even slightly since the battle.

She was close. Being close to the CCT tower meant being closer to Beacon. She wasn't aware of where she was until a moment of lucidity came and she found herself looking at the familiar buildings of the school. The Grimm flooded the walkways between. She'd dealt with a few pockets of Grimm thus far as she'd left the safe zone, but this was a different matter altogether.

It started to dawn on her again. The old White Fang hideout that she'd gone to with Sun, back when they were after Torchwick. It might have clues… after all it was…

...it was just a warehouse. There was no significance. A mech bulldozed out of it and a huge crowd of witnesses were there. The White Fang would have cleaned shop. It was just a recruitment meeting. There wouldn't be anything there.

She shook her head. No, the White Fang was deep in Vale. She'd already considered this move. Dozens of splinters of the Fang's presence in Vale had to be around, sure, but she had no way of actually locating any of them with any certainty. There weren't going to be big meetings to listen in on or plans in transit to intercept. She even doubted that any of the splinters were even active in the danger zones. Everything in the here was dead except the Grimm, and…

" _Maybe me too,"_ she thought. She wasn't sure yet at any rate.

She heard snarls from the streets below. In the sky she could make out flocks of smaller Nevermore. They'd have been invisible in the night to a human. Even still, she needed to find a safe spot. Night vision wouldn't help her if she got overwhelmed by smaller Grimm.

As though driven by madness, she found herself clearing her way toward the trees at the edge of Vale. From there she'd go forward, deeper into the heart of the danger zone. Toward ground zero. The voice of reason that warned her to find a safe place to rest and let things cool off grew quieter in the back of her mind. It was a mind twisted by emotions she didn't fully understand that screamed loudest.

" _If I can get back to the dorms… I'll be safe… long enough to figure out my next move."_

What an idea for a safe spot. There was no finer place in all of Vale to torture herself in relative safety.

She would search for years if she had to. As long as secrets were in Vale, she'd find them. When she did, only then would she make the journey to Patch. It wasn't like it was even that far away. She owed it to her whole team to ensure she had an idea of what to do next before risking their lives by daring to associate further with them after _his_ promise.

As she moved, far off she could see the Library - an equally wonderful place to torture herself, if not better than the dorm room of her team. She doubted the Grimm would give her any privacy given how… exposed it was there. Her mind's eye could only picture it in flames, but the fire had died down, leaving behind a charred structure with barely enough left to not collapse entirely. There was something fitting about it. The Library had been her second favorite place to be, and the most common place to find her when she wasn't at class or at the dorm. It was like her sanctuary, and it had burned. She failed to protect it. She failed to protect anyone. She failed to protect…

" _Yang."_

She corrected her movement through the trees, opting for a different path. Safety was secondary. She would revisit the place where she had lived through her greatest failure, for the sake of penance and...

A force beyond her understanding drew her there - a sense of hope breathed energy and life into her sore muscles. She looked back only a single time as she neared Beacon's grounds. The only company was a stray blackbird in the sky, seemingly headed for the same destination, hovering in her peripheral view.

Small, quiet company was the best company, Blake decided. She could hear the howls of the beowolves around her as they crawled out from the ruins of Beacon Academy, but they were far away. Distant. For now, she was safe.

There was no spelling it any other way, though. For certain, Blake Belladonna had started to lose it. She had never been a stupid girl. She was as logical and methodical in her approaches to most matters as any could be, yet, here she was throwing herself into the proverbial belly of the beast.

All to punish herself?

To find leads?

Her eyes scanned the area around the burned study, desperate to find an errant flicker of gold, as though a single ember would be enough to burn away the nightmare left behind in the wake of the events of the so-called "Battle of Beacon".

* * *

"Hey again. Told you I'd be back." Yang said.

It was cooler that day. The sky was painted with softly glowing orange colors and clouds tinted purple in the light of the slowing setting sun. The chill was welcome - the air was cool and crisp, the wind gentle against her skin even as it kissed at the absent, ghostly flesh of her right hand, brushing between the phantom fingers left behind in Vale. For years since she'd discovered her semblance, she had found herself immune to the bite of the cold in all but the most extreme circumstances. Since then the flames had flickered out and the chill was returning, settling into her bones like it'd never left. Now it seemed to permeate her entire being. She might have hated it if not for how alien the sensation was after going so long without it.

Even still, despite the comfort of the autumn air, she felt herself pull her jacket tighter around her where she sat at the cliffside, the long empty sleeve of the right arm stretched taut around her knees as she held them to her chest. Yang never once brought her violet eyes down to look upon the smooth gray stone of Summer's grave, instead enchanted by the sky ahead. She imagined the ghost of her mother standing behind her as she spoke.

"It's really beautiful today. Can't believe I almost missed it. It's… good that Ruby and dad are keeping me going outside. I think I'd feel a lot worse if I didn't venture out. You know me and… how I get when I've got nothing to do." Yang spoke to the open air.

Far off she could hear the faint echoes of gunfire - a single shot every few seconds with no real distinct pattern. There was nothing alarming about it - Yang wasn't the only one who had to try and stay active and sharp in the days since they'd left Vale. They hadn't seen Grimm since they'd come home, though, so Yang assumed that her sister must have simply wanted to see how much momentum she could rack up out in the forests of Patch with Crescent Rose. She had to stay somewhat sharp, after all. If only Yang could have let Ember Celica guide her through the trees at the speed of gunfire like before. She could have been right beside her younger sister, where she belonged. She wasn't about to fault the girl for going without her, though. Yang was deadweight in her current state. All the comforting in the world wouldn't change that.

" _Rain check on the run, yeah? I'm still waiting on the replacement parts for my gun. Well… and me."_ Yang had said at the time. Ruby had smiled at her words. It seemed like it made her feel a little better.

She wished she was getting better. Maybe she could be a proper big sister again soon. All Yang needed was to get the _fire_ back. The problem was that she didn't know why she couldn't. No one she knew did.

She inhaled a deep breath of the dying autumn air through her nose, and she spoke once more to the specter of her mother. The one that didn't leave her willingly. The one that was there for her until she breathed no more. Until she was _taken away_ from Yang and Ruby alike.

"I'm still working on recovering. I start to feel like... maybe I'll start making some progress soon. I just keep remembering how much of a process it's going to be. How long everything is going to take. I don't like it, but I guess I should be glad anything can be done to help me at all, right? Heh." She trailed off for a moment, her eyes wandering to the trees resting alongside the cliff along with her. They kept a healthy distance from where Summer Rose rested, which was for the best. The woods did not captivate her interest so much as the images that floated before her mind's eye, reminding her of all the things she'd done and said that led up to these moments of recovery.

How excited she'd been, when she passed her entrance exam to Beacon Academy! She felt like she would get to finally be… just Yang. No need to babysit, no need to play substitute mom. No need to look after anyone except herself and whatever team she ended up a part of.

When a special incident in Vale happened and Ruby was selected personally by the Headmaster, Yang's heart dropped but she couldn't bring herself to **be** angry. Even if a selfish part of her wanted to. Her bitterness faded away as fast as it came, slipping beneath the surface effortlessly. She was too happy for Ruby to be angry. She wanted the best for her. She wanted to see her natural skill blossom in a place where her abilities would be recognized and appreciated. A part of her needed her little sister. She didn't trust her father to…

No, by now, it was time to cut him some slack. He knew a thing or two about loss. He would never see Raven or Summer again. There was always the chance Yang would see Blake again. Hopefully soon if Weiss' master plans worked out.

Months passed in Beacon, and Yang realized that there were some things she couldn't escape about herself. She was the "mom friend" a lot of the time, even if first impressions didn't show that. It would have been that way with or without Ruby. Yang didn't end up missing a thing.

"Dad's still… you know. Dad. He's trying hard. Harder than he ever has, to be… kinda brutally honest. I try not to get mad about that but… nah, enough about him. I wanted to tell you about Ruby." She spoke aloud once more to the open air. No one cared about Ruby as much as Summer. She deserved an update.

Ruby had a whole new part to play after what had happened. Yang didn't expect her younger sister to so quickly and effortlessly step up to the challenge, but Ruby had grown so much in so little time. She was so much more mature. Maybe it was the things she saw at the Battle of Beacon.

"She's been looking out for me lately. She's trying this… thing where she treats me like nothing happened to me. She puts all this… faith in me. Like I can do all these things that I used to do without any extra effort. I didn't know how to handle that at first… but I start to realize that I think I need that. I needed someone to just believe in me, no conditions or anything. I really kinda didn't believe in me when I got here. Still wrestling with the reality. Every day I'd go to use my right arm to do something and get another reminder. It's like, 'Whups, wrong arm! Try again! Just not with that arm.' Anyway… point is, she's like you, mom. She's really more and more like you every day. I can't help but wonder how much that messes with dad. I mean it's starting to even mess with me a little bit… but in a good way, I think."

She exhaled another long breath - with every series of sentences she uttered, it was like a weight was easing in her chest. She exhaled all the pressure that threatened to push her to the edge of deep depression once more.

"It's still a little hard to listen to her treat me like nothing's changed though, at times… because, you know… things _have_ changed. I can't do what I used to do. I'm off balance and awkward and I'm just… my head's not in the game, and I'm having serious trouble even just… manifesting my aura…"

She shook her head.

"It's not… it's not all bad though. I'm making really good progress, so I'm told. I thought it'd take longer for me to start feeling functional, but I'm getting to a point where I think maybe I could still live my life like this, replacement incoming or no. Not that I'd want to, I mean…" She shook her head, taking a moment to collect her thoughts.

"Dad says synchronizing my nervous system to a cybernetic doesn't guarantee perfect control right away… so I'm going to have to get used to that. I'm trying to work on my footwork again - kicks and movement alike. Dad's idea. I figure he's probably right. I mean, it's not like my footwork or my kicks _sucked_ , they just weren't _as_ good as the rest of my combat routine. My footwork was actually pretty solid I thought, I just, you know… there's always room for improvement. It's been good to be doing combat practice again. I half thought dad wouldn't be up for it at all but he seems to think it's good for me too. Except now he won't go all out because like I said, my aura has been a no-show since I ended up back here." She groaned. No aura, no semblance. No semblance, no fire. No fire, no drive to overcome adversity.

She remembered her fight with Mercury, and how close she'd cut that particular encounter. He'd had her in check in the footwork department, hands down. If not for her semblance, she'd have lost for that reason alone.

"...I was thinking about my fight in the singles bracket. That punk, Mercury. I keep wondering if I really earned that win or if he threw it." She spoke with a soft sigh, her eyes closing. She could feel her heart sink a little bit at the thought.

She wasn't stupid. She knew that her winning that match had to play into the bad guy's hands somehow, now that it was all over. He hit the threshold perfectly. He played havoc with her aura just enough to push it as far to the breaking point as he could without sounding the alarm that would call the match in his favor. He didn't look legitimately surprised when he whirled around in mock surprise when she came at him, but at the time she didn't think much about it. She was used to dumbfounded looks, and inexpressive ones from people who just didn't quite understand what was about to happen to them.

"I mean, he looked like he was _trying to look_ surprised when I went in to show him what for. Even if I'd won for reals, I'd have probably still gotten tricked in whatever way they did to make me think he was attacking me with a depleted aura. I still just… yeah. I need to work on it. I agree with dad. I'm doing as much as I can. It's still hard, I mean… I wouldn't think losing an arm would affect my footwork and kicks, but it does. Big time. Still... getting better." She felt her whole body seem to slow, her lips sealing shut for a long moment, her eyes finally trailing down to gaze upon the stone.

 _Thus kindly I scatter._

"I still worry. Most of all about Blake. The fact that I haven't been able to contact her, say anything to assure her or anything… that drives me up the wall almost as bad as my stump does. I've replayed the scene so many times in my head that it's just maddening sometimes…" She felt herself grind her teeth together. She fought the urge to thrust her fingers into her hair and pull at the roots. "I just expected her to be there when I came to. I don't know why. She wasn't though. She couldn't have been. She was too hurt. He _stabbed_ her. It was like her aura wasn't even... there. It was like she was… like me." She hated the thought of Blake's aura abandoning her when she needed it most… but it seemed like it had.

"I don't know how he - much less anyone - could fight with someone like Blake and be totally unscathed. It just doesn't make sense… sure there's always someone better, we've all lost sparring matches so it happens. Blake, though, she didn't learn from a school. She didn't read tactics from a textbook or participate in regular school crap like we had to. She learned to fight all on her own and she's turned out _damn good_ at it. He should have at least had to put some effort into it…"

" _You're looking into it too much."_

For a moment, her conscience took on the sound of Summer's soft voice, calming and gentle.

"Maybe I _am_ looking into it too much. I just… maybe I am. It's hard not to. He took me out in one blow. He stabbed Blake, and he…" Her eyes rose from the grave and rose to a clear spot in the sky, focusing on nothing as realization crept in.

"...he looked familiar. Blake had sketches in her notebook of a guy like him… I never asked what or who he was. I just… assumed it was a character from one of her books or something..."

She remembered the few tales Blake had shared with her about the White Fang, as well as the person she trusted who went bad. Her old partner. The one that took her along for a downward spiral, and gave her trust issues… and Blake had compared him to…"

Yang felt tears coming, but the anger that suppressed them didn't rise enough to reach her eyes. It was more than anger. It was betrayal. It was sorrow. It was a feeling like she had done something terrible along the way to hurt Blake's trust in her, and she had no way of knowing what it was.

"...mom? Do I really seem like the kind of person that would end up like that guy? Using a… cause with pure intentions plastered on to justify murder, crime…" She couldn't be. She never imagined herself as that person in all her life. She couldn't even do it now. It didn't fit.

" _No."_

"How, then? How could she…?" Yang felt muscles in her neck strain, her head tilting upward in a vain attempt to thwart gravity's drive to bring down tears from watery eyes. Anger was too quickly giving way to misery. She was tired of feeling sorry for herself, yet it was easy to lose herself in her own head.

" _You'll find out soon."_

She sniffled, and the tears seemed to slowly drain away again - all but a single tiny tear that rolled down her cheek in defiance. She quickly moved to wipe it away, determined not to allow it to linger...

With the wrong arm.

First, there was a brief moment of confusion. Then her remaining fist pummeled into the earth next to her as a scream of frustration escaped her lips, echoing from the high cliff where she sat. She didn't like how quickly her optimism could shatter. All she had to do was think about the past a bit. Particularly Blake, and the loss of her own abilities. Her eyes, however, remained violet, only darkening slightly to a deeper, almost blue shade. No matter what emotion she felt, no matter how intense, she could not burn.

* * *

When she found it, it was like the tips of her fingers went numb, and there was a violent tug in the center of her chest where her heart lied. The rest of the dark, ruined hall of the library became background colors - shades of black and white in the near pitch-darkness. It alone shined amidst the dark like it held all of the fire Blake's partner carried with her everywhere she went.

The limb it once belonged to lied not far away. It was only a dark shape to her. In the light of Ember Celica, it was impossible to be distracted by something so macabre. She didn't want to know what force pulled the bracelet away from the arm.

The weight of the weapons in her hands suddenly felt unendurable, and she resisted the urge to drop them and let them fall to her feet. She unconscious rested Gambol Shroud on her back before she knelt to pick up the single missing bracelet. Not a speck of dust marred the pristine golden surface. It was as unblemished as the first day Blake had first seen it. It was a **lot** heavier than it looked. She didn't know precisely how to work the mechanism that changed the bracer from its innocuous passive shape into the gauntlet of mass destruction Yang used in battle, though at this point it didn't matter. It wasn't like she intended to -use- the thing. She wouldn't have known the first thing about operating it in a fight.

She rose to her feet, though she could not tear her eyes away from the bracelet in her palm. Her fingers pressed along the metal and she felt a sharp, overwhelming urge to slip it over her wrist.

" _You don't deserve it,"_ she told herself. " _You have no right."_

There was a moment of dizziness as she shook her head and forced herself to look away from the bracelet. The only reason that gauntlet wasn't on the hand it belonged to was because…

"...Yang." Blake exhaled her name like a strained cry for mercy.

She had wronged her whole team, but none so much as her own partner. Yang Xiao Long. Her closest friend. The first human she heard outright validate the struggle of being a faunus. Probably the strongest, kindest soul she'd met. She who tried so hard to know her and understand her despite all the chaos of the months they shared as partners. She who woke her from her self-torture. Yang was everything a great glowing flame could be. Warm, constant, and dangerous if mistreated.

Beautiful, too. So beautiful the rest of the school didn't seem to know how to react to her.

Yet despite all those things, she had doubted Yang. She had let her pain become hers. She saw Yang shed tears for the first time ever when she did it, and that was a crime that she would never forgive of herself now that she'd ruined any hope of making things right.

She might never see Yang again. All she had was this bracelet that was never hers, that shouldn't be hers, yet she felt so selfish that she wanted to keep it. It was the only thing she had to remember Yang by other than memories tinted in an unpleasant shade by the chaos that came to ruin everything. A dark part of her mind whispered that it wasn't like Yang would ever need it, but Blake dug her nails into her palms and bit her tongue until she tasted metal to punish herself for it. What a horrible thing to even think.

Why was she even here right now? She'd run. It was already done, and she knew why she had to do it from the beginning. If Adam was forced to choose between hunting her or her team, she knew who he'd pick. So long as both targets weren't conveniently in the same place, they were safe. Everyone else was safe. Ruby, Weiss, and Yang most of all. Yet here she was agonizing over days gone by. It was a childish exercise, not to mention a risky one. Negative emotion would bring Grimm. More than she could probably fight by herself.

"...you've paid enough for all of this," she murmured, and the moment the words left her lips, she regretted them. Her fingers gripped tight at her sides, one gripping the bracelet like a stray gust of wind would blow it away from her fingertips.

The words left as a quiet, pitiful sob. "...no. No, you didn't… you shouldn't have had to pay anything. This was never supposed to be… your…"

It wasn't supposed to be Yang's battle. It was supposed to be…

" _...it wasn't my fight either. Not yet. I wasn't strong enough. If I'd run…"_

If she'd run when her instincts first told her to, Yang would be okay. Yang would have never come running for her. Instead she ignored the impulse and remained like a fool that had read one too many fictional tales of heroism. She had expected to win until the moment she crossed blades with him…

Impulse and fantasy got her here. It nearly got Yang killed. It was horrible to say that Yang was _lucky_ to leave with only a missing arm, yet the thought repeated in her mind as it always did.

She strode away from the site, navigating the toppled bookcases and shelves and climbing toward the windows high on the walls. More Grimm would be coming soon. She was sure of it… and she only had so much ammunition now that she didn't have a stockpile at the school to fall back on. The crippling aura of the building she had just been in faded away, and urgency returned. She could hear the footsteps of the Grimm, their growls as they sought the source of despair in their midst. Her aura rippled and gave her goosebumps at the hostile presences coming ever closer.

She maneuvered her way back towards the walkways that led into Vale, and she felt her aura calm, bringing her brisk walk to a slow pace before she stopped to stand and steel herself for the sprint she'd likely have to make to get to the dorm. Somehow, this stop made it feel easier. There was one thing left to do before she could let herself disappear entirely. That meant getting back to Weiss… without waking her. What a feat that'd be.

She glanced back down at Ember Celica.

Maybe she could just leave it somewhere convenient. Maybe Weiss would find it and bring it to…

She shook her head. Anyone who happened upon it could take it. It was valuable. It was the weapon of a huntress. It was _priceless_.

A flawlessly gorgeous, yet unapologetically cocky smirk accompanied by glowing golden locks and lilac-colored eyes popped into her mind, and yet another wave of despair crashed over her. Life was full of priceless things it seemed, most of which were moments. She couldn't carry those with her. They would have to be left behind.

She'd never have any practical use for Ember Celica. Yang very well could someday, even if it was a longshot. Yet her mind punished her for even thinking of doing anything other than keeping it. It was all she had to take with her and...

She couldn't carry Yang's bullheaded determination with her, even if it might come in handy someday. She couldn't carry Yang's quiet, understanding support in the face of Blake's own learned tendencies to keep secrets from the people she cared for most. She couldn't carry Yang's lopsided grins or frustratingly inappropriately timed puns.

She had to leave her behind, along with everything else. Yet it was that thought that hit her so hard. Yang had trusted her. Yang had believed in her. Yang had gone out of her way to uplift her.

Was it so selfish to take this one thing? She didn't get much chance to think on it further. Her aura jolted alert, and then everything swayed violently to the side in a blur of motion, and suddenly angled downward. A fleeting second of confusion passed before reality set in and Blake felt lucid enough to process what was happening.

She was on the ground, half on the pavement of a walkway leading to the dorms. The bracelet lied in the grass. Between she and the remaining part of Ember Celica stood a tall and fierce beowolf, its gaze seemingly directed at its own raised claw seemingly in pride of the cheap shot it'd landed on the girl in front of it.

Blake's aura had turned what could have easily been a sudden, instant, lethal strike into a momentary stunning action - her aura was too well developed, honed, and trained to be phased in any meaningful way by the single attack alone. Gambol Shroud was once again in her hands in an instinctual motion and she quickly rolled to regain her footing.

This single Grimm was barely a threat. Anything short of an alpha would only annoy her at best. One wouldn't call the resolution of the conflict anything resembling a "fight". In a flash of motion, the creature of Grimm was felled, standing stupidly and motionlessly before it seemed to realize it had been cleaved in two. The bracelet was back in Blake's hands by the time the creature could fade to dust.

Her aura once again bristled. Grimm were starting to notice. As she whirled to take an approximate count, could see many of them at fair distances away, but they would close the gap fast. Grimm were deceptively fast, not to mention that she did not have names for all the Grimm she saw. They were completely unknown to her, and she preferred to not discover their unique quirks like this.

Too many were coming to comfortably count, and the longer she stayed, the more there would be. The only option was obvious. She started to dash along the walkway, desperate to cover the distance to the dorm even though she couldn't even see them behind the buildings ahead. She noticed a lone bird perched - black feathers and red eyes - perched on an abandoned bench. A crow awaiting what looked to be a fast approaching feast, by the looks of it. Maybe it was the same one she saw chasing her to the library. It was yet another grim reminder of how bad her odds were…

...yet… another… Grimm… reminder.

Yang would have been proud, not only for the pun, but for the horrendous timing. Blake couldn't even sigh or groan at herself for even thinking it.

Eventually the dorms were in sight, though she realized soon after that she wouldn't make it. More Grimm were ahead to intercept her, and if she stopped to fight them or let them delay her even for a moment, those behind her would gain enough on her to be a threat. She skidded to a halt and embraced her fate. Either she would cut a path through, or she would die here, clutching the other half of Ember Celica. Either route would have been fitting, she imagined.

As the Grimm moved in to strike in brutish, animalistic fashion, she moved in a practiced manner, twisting her body and sidestepping attacks in a familiar dance as she maneuvered to maintain distance and keep track of the Grimm and their tendencies to telegraph their attacks thanks to their inherently predictable and basic natures. Unfortunately, she found herself losing the strength to fight far faster than she imagined she would. The number she cut down before she felt the need to retreat was far less impressive than she hoped.  
After securing a little space for herself via her semblance, she dashed full-tilt to the dormitory building, hoping in vain that the narrow corridors would at least give her a little more control over how many she fought at once while she figured her next move. Her aura was going strong still, but she had been running for over an hour with minimal pauses to slow down or stop.

Her aura jolted once more and she felt a sense of panic as it hinted at the action that would occur only a fraction of a second later. Her semblance kicked in instinctively at the reflexive reaction to unforeseen danger. It propelled her backward as sharp rocks ripped upward from the pavement, and she barely avoided being knocked precariously into the flock behind her. She turned sharply to try and find the culprit. The roars were deafening. There were so many.

There was an enormous ursa, adorned in what looked like armor of white bone to go with the usual Grimm mask.

It was an alpha. Basically the most inconvenient thing that could happen.

It would have been nice to have her team. No, she wouldn't need her whole team. Just one other person. Yang would have made this easy. Reckless and powerful was good against Grimm. They weren't clever enough to take advantage of Yang's usual approaches to fighting.

It was far faster than it looked, and it closed the distance rapidly as she leapt over the sharp rocks it had broken apart. As soon as she got past, it was there, its arm thrust out to maul her. She could evade by mere centimeters at most before the creature followed through.

She could only give ground as the ravenous beast advanced upon her, and very quickly her aura screamed the danger as more caught up behind her. Entirely on the backfoot, she kept seeking the same end as before. An escape. A way out. A means by which to _run_.

Instinct took over when she found she was out of time. She needed to _cut_ a way out again. She went on the offensive, giving no Grimm in her sight a chance to strike first as she tried to stay out of the Alpha's immediate range. Amidst frantic slashes at nearby creatures, she managed to gain enough altitude with a shadow clone to bring her ribbon to the handle of her Gambol Shroud. With a shot of gunfire and a throw later, Blake Belladonna became a whirlwind of steel as she cut through the weakest Grimm first in an effort to gain space.

Dozens fell from her attacks, and she found the space she wanted. The wild attacks had left a horrendous gash in the Alpha's face that seemed to crack its mask. It rose its paws in what looked like pain over its face, and Blake took advantage. Cutting it down was too much of an investment of time with too little payoff. She ran. That was what she was good at.

The doorway to the dorms was so close, yet it felt so far. More Grimm moved to obstruct her - creeps and boarbatusks had started to come at her, and the difference in tactics these Grimm had made it hard to fight even as she worked her to cut through beast after beast. With each shadow of herself the beasts brought down she felt herself grow more tired, her aura beginning to feel the pressure. Worst of all, she could see the Alpha was still advancing, tall and impossible to overlook even behind the horde of Grimm that were closer. These dozens of others she'd put between it and her gave her a speck of breathing room.

She managed to evade the blows of the offending Grimm at her sides along the walkway, and then a spot of hope flooded her senses as her aura calmed and she felt the roars of the beasts start to get quieter. She didn't dare look back.

Finally, she reached the door to the dorm - broken with the floors by it decorated in shattered glass where the window had been. It seemed there were no Grimm inside, at least. Only when she was behind the door in relative safety did she spare a look back at the horde.

The Grimm lost interest. Something else was more interesting to them. She could immediately see why.

Outside, the Grimm were being cut down in swathes by a giant, glowing entity seemingly composed of icy blue light, wielding a blade large enough to cleave a Death Stalker in half with a single blow. She had never seen anything like it. Blake wasn't sure what this meant. Was it going to be hostile to her? Did it only fight Grimm? What even _was_ it?

Amber eyes widened as the Alpha Ursa that was chasing her before met its end violently, suddenly, and unceremoniously - one of four other Grimm killed in a single swing. Large, sweeping strikes were cutting down swathes of Grimm, and those it didn't kill seemed to have the bizarre sense to flee. This entity was powerful enough to frighten fear personified, it seemed. That was something she couldn't help but find very, very interesting.

It looked like a knight. A giant knight with a greatsword fit for a giant.

And then she heard a sound like someone shouting something. She leaned closer to try and make it out.

" **Blake Belladonna!"**

Blake paled, and then bolted up the stairs nearby. That voice was none other than the person she'd tried to run from today. Weiss Schnee was here, not far behind, and somehow she had a giant death knight working with or for her.

She wasn't afraid of the knight anymore. She didn't know what she was afraid of. Weiss wouldn't do anything worse than the Grimm.

If anything, she should have been happy. She would get to visit the place she'd throughout the last year in peace and quiet. She would even have company.

She tried to be positive, but she failed. Weiss didn't pull punches, but Blake realized she didn't want her to.

* * *

 **Two chapters to go! Thanks for reading and being interested in this work. Please leave me a review if you like my story :). I will be asking for constructive criticism at the end of the story. For now I need to focus on moving forward or I might not finish this work in time for the Volume 4 announcement... which would be really embarrassing!**


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